Technical characteristics of an air conditioner

Esta entrada también está disponible en: Spanish

What are the technical characteristics of my air conditioner?

With this article we are going to help you learn to read the technical characteristics label of any air conditioner. This label, whether on the indoor or outdoor unit, tells us a lot of information, some of it we know and some of it we don’t know what they mean at all.

The idea is that once we know all this data it will help us, for example, to know how much gas my air conditioner carries, how much it consumes in amps and kilowatts, the real power in frigories -kcal /watts or btu’s, etc. This will help us to determine a new electrical installation or, if necessary, to replace our old air conditioner with one of the latest generation and that is of the same power as the current one, also by knowing what type of gas our machine carries and therefore in the event of a gas leak to have an idea of how much a gas recharge can cost.

How to locate the label of the technical characteristics of an air conditioner

The first thing, obviously, will be to locate where these labels are. As a rule, the labels on the inner unit are either on the bottom of the machine or on one side -the right side as seen from the front is the most common-. In the outdoor unit the same thing happens, this label is usually either on the front plate of the machine or on its right side looking straight ahead -where the copper tubes and electric cable are connected-. Once located, let’s see the explanation!

Indoor unit rating label

In the indoor unit there are generally less technical data than in the outdoor unit. Nevertheless, let’s review the most important data.

1. MODEL: Model of our air conditioning. This is an important piece of information if we have a fault or if we need a spare part.
2. VOLTAGE: Electrical operating voltage. In this case 230V.
3. PHASE: Number of phases. ~/N indicates that this unit is single-phase with a line (~) and a neutral.
4. FREQUENCY: Voltage frequency. This frequency indicates the number of cycles or times the voltage oscillates per second. The measurement used is Hertz (Hz). This frequency is usually 50 or 60 Hz. In all European Union countries the frequency is 50 Hz, while in the vast majority of American countries this frequency is 60 Hz.
5. IP CODE: Indicates the level of protection an electrical appliance has against damage from dust and rain. You can see an explanatory table in this link: IPCODE
6. REFRIGERANT: This section tells us the type of coolant used by our machine. In this case R410 gas.
7. NET WEIGHT: The net weight is nothing more than the weight of the machine. In this case our internal unit weighs 10 Kg.
8. MAX. INPUT: It indicates the maximum hourly power consumption of our indoor unit: 40W/h.
9. INPUT: In this case it is indicating the standard hourly electricity consumption of this indoor unit: 33W/h.
10. CURRENT: The current indicates the current intensity of our machine. In this case: 0.25 A (amps).
11. YEAR OF MANUFACTURE: Here we can see the date of manufacture of this equipment, year and month of manufacture.
12. SERIAL NO.: Serial number of our air conditioner. Both the model and the serial number are important if we have a fault, especially if it is under warranty, as these are the data that the technical service will ask us for.

Outdoor unit rating label

It is in the outdoor unit that the machine’s cooling capacity and the amount of refrigerant gas it carries are generally indicated. Let’s look at a test label to see what data it gives us.

1. MODEL: As in the previous label, here we can see the exact model of our machine.
2. VOLTAGE: It indicates both the voltage and the electrical frequency: 230 Volts and 50 Hertz.
3. CAPACITY:  Here it is indicating the capacity or cooling power per hour in cold mode. We can see that this machine has a cooling power of 7.1 kW (7,100 W (watts)), if we want to convert the kW to cooling we should multiply this unit by 860 (7.1 kW X 860 = 6,106 frigories or Kcal/h). To convert the kW to BTU, we should multiply it by 3412,142, which would give us approximately 24,000 BTU/h.
4. CURRENT: Current intensity consumed by our air conditioner in amps (A).
5. INPUT POWER: Electrical consumption indicated in kW/h.
6. CAPACITY HEATING: Heat output in heat pump operation.
7. CURRENT HEATING: Current intensity in heat mode.
8. INPUT POWER HEATING: Electrical consumption expressed in kW/h in heat pump operation.
9. MAX. CURRENT COOLING: This is the maximum current that can reach this air conditioner. This measure is important for designing the electrical installation and selecting both the thickness of the supply wires and their protections (automatic and differential).
10. MAX. CURRENT HEATING: Maximum current of the unit in heat pump mode.
11. REFRIGERANT: This section tells us what type of refrigerant gas our air conditioner uses as well as the amount of gas needed. This equipment uses R410A gas and its factory load is 1700 g or 1.7 kg. This information is very important when repairing a gas leak, since when the corresponding gas charge is made, this amount of gas must be added to the interior.
12. SERIAL No.: It tells us the serial number of our machine.