How long should it take for an Air Conditioner to cool my house?

Question

I recently (2 months ago) had a 2 ton 13 seer high efficiency condesor w/ 2 ton high effeciency coil by American Standard installed. Inside the 1,000 sq foot condo is a bit humid and about 71. It is about 85 degrees outside and some humidity. So I turn on the A/C and it has been on for over an hour and the room temp has dropped 1/2 a degree. I went outside and no leafs or debris is near the unit. There is a thicker copper pipe wrapped by insullation, so I can't tell if it cold/sweating; then a smaller copper pipe next to the wrapped one, but this one is not cold or sweating. Should it be? I can't figure out why it is taking so long to cool down. How long should it take to cool to 68 degrees? Thanks

Answer 1

The rule of thumb is 1 degree per hour, during the heat of the day. In the morning or evening it is about 3 degrees an hour. You should set your thermostat at the temp that you want and then leave it alone. Set it and forget it.

Answer 2

A A/C not only cools, it dehumidifies. It may cool the space down fast, but it has to get all the moisture out of the air, walls, furniture, etc. etc. so it may run a long time at first. Once you get the humidity out, and don't open windows or bring a lot back in, the cooling cycles will average out and the run times will be short. Just let it run. The bigger copper line should be wet and cold, but no ice. The smaller line may be warm, or even hot. Make sure the coils in the condenser should be clean of dirt or any buildup. Hope this helps! Any questions, just ask!

Answer 3

It dropped a 1/2 degree in an hour ...this is pretty good. You don't want it to cool too quickly . That would shut the unit down before it had a chance to dehumidify your condo.When that happens you have cool , clammy air.. not comfortable at all.The smaller pipe should be unwrapped and warm to the touch. It is not possible to say how long it will run... there are too many unknown variables.

Answer 4

If your house has proper insulation.

Knowing your a/c is new and efficient. It should not take to long to pull it down to temp.

But on the first pull down to temp., it will take a bit longer because your house and air is like a warm sponge full of moisture. It will run and run for a while and actually be removing the moisture and heat as it does. Once the humidity is reduced and the temp is dropped also you will feel much more comfortable and it wont take as long to pull down the second time the thermostat calls for cooling.

Your a/c tonnage or size seems to be enough for your square footage, and as someone has already mentioned, You don't want the cooling capacity to be so great that it doesn't have time to remove the humidity before it shuts off.

Feel the temp of the leaving air of your outside unit, It should be approximately 30 degrees warmer than the outside air entering it. This heat you feel coming out of the out side unit is the heat that is being removed from your house.  If this is true, then your unit is probably doing its job. just a note: A/c units remove heat to leave cold in the space. They don't add cold.

I think of it as shoveling out the heat to leave a cooler conditioned dehumidified space.

Good luck

Ranger