Why Is Regular Maintenance Crucial for Energy Efficiency?
A: Because efficiency is a rating your equipment earns clean and loses dirty. A condenser coil packed with red dirt, a filter the airflow can't get through, or a charge that has drifted low all force longer runtimes for the same indoor temperature — and in Central Oklahoma the run hours are already high.
The rating context is worth understanding. Oklahoma sits in the DOE South region, so a new split-system air conditioner installed here has to meet 14.3 SEER2 and 11.7 EER2, against 13.4 SEER2 in the North region. Split-system heat pumps need 7.5 HSPF2; gas furnaces need 80% AFUE. Equipment that is legal to install new in Ohio is not legal to install new here.
Those ratings are measured on clean, correctly charged equipment. Maintenance is what keeps the installed system somewhere near the number on the label — nobody can tell you a percentage without measuring your system.
More on the rating itself at SEER. To have a technician measure yours, reach us at 405-420-4895 or through our contact page.