What is BTU and why do I need to know about it?

Buying an air conditioner that's best suited to your requirements can get technical and quite complicated too. The air conditioner is a complex system with several indoor and outdoor components working together in sync to deliver a burst of cool air to your room. To arrive at the kind of AC you want, you need to understand certain important terminologies that can ease the decision-making process for you.

In this blog, we decode one such term - BTU. Firstly, it is important to note that like the working parts in an AC, terminologies too work together. To understand what BTU is, you need to understand what the word 'tonnage' means. It's easy to incorrectly assume that 'ton' stands for the weighing capacity of the AC. However, this is not the case. A ton is the cooling capacity of your air conditioner calculated via the heat generated in BTUs per hour.

So now, what does the BTU per hour mean? What does it mean when you see an 18000 BTU Energy Saving Split AC in BD? Or for that matter, why do you search for an 18000 BTU Inverter Split AC Price in Bangladesh? Let's break it down with this as an example.

First and foremost, BTU stands for British Thermal Units. It is a generic term/unit used across many electronics that utilize and transfer heat. In the world of air conditioning, the BTU is used to measure the heat removed rather than the amount of heat consumed. This BTU measurement, once calculated, gives the air conditioner its tonnage. Based on standard guidelines, a 1-ton AC emits 12000 BTUs (British Thermal Units) per hour and a 2-ton AC emits 24000 BTUs per hour. The higher the BTU rating of an air conditioner, the more powerful it is. Hence, it does consume more electricity. So, a 1.5-ton AC, or an 18000 BTU Split AC Price in Bangladesh will be more than a 12000 BTU split AC.

However, with accurate BTUs or heat generated per hour, your AC might carry too much load or too little load. Therefore, buying the optimal tonnage with the right BTUs expelled is necessary for cost and energy savings. Now that you have a basic idea about BTUs, it's time to learn more terminologies! Check out our other blogs on tonnage, split ACs, and more!