- 1). Measure the length and width of your room. Multiply them to arrive at the square footage. For example, a 10' long by 10' wide room (10 x 10) would have an area of 100 sq ft.
- 2). Convert your square footage into the equivalent measurement in tons. Heat pump output is measured in a unit called tons of capacity. 1,000 square feet is equal to 1.5 tons of capacity. A room that is only 100 square feet in size would convert into 0.30 tons. A ton is 2,000 lbs, so you would divide 3000 (1.5 tons) by 100 to arrive at 30. Move the decimal point over to represent what percentage 30 is of 1.5 tons (30 x 100 = 3000).
- 3). Covert your tons of capacity into BTU (British Thermal Units). Heat pumps are listed by kW size and not tons or BTU, you need to convert to BTU first before converting to kW. Each ton is equal to 12,000 BTU. For a 100 square foot room with a ton size of 0.30 the equivalent BTU is 3,600 (12,000 x 0.30 = 3,600).
- 4). Convert your BTU to kW. Each BTU is equal to 0.293 kW. For a 100 square foot room with a BTU capacity of 3,600, the equivalent measurement in kW is 1,054.8. Round that to the nearest whole number, and you would need a heat pump that can produce 1,055 kW per hour to meet your heating needs.
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