What’s a Ton of Air Conditioning? What’s a Btu?

When it comes to air conditioning units, you may get confused by a lot of words. For example, when someone talks about 8 ton ac unit, you cannot image how big it is. But a ton of air conditioning is not referring to weight. Understanding some air conditioner terms can be helpful, especially when you are to rent temporary ac units.

What’s a Ton Exactly?

A ton is a measure unit, telling how much heat the air conditioning can remove from the room. A ton of refrigeration, short for TR or RT, is a unit of power mostly used in North America to describe the heat-extraction capacity of refrigeration and air conditioning equipment. A refrigeration ton is approximately equivalent to 12,000 BTU/h or 3.5 kW. So a 8 ton ac unit is a 96,000 btu ac unit.

So, What’s a Btu?

Many air conditioning manufacturers also specify capacity in BTU/h, especially when specifying the performance of smaller units. The British Thermal Unit (BTU) is measure of the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one lb. of water by one degree Fahrenheit.

How Many Tons Do I Need for Event Tents?

Now that you have an idea about the ton and btu, the next thing you should do is to choose the best cooling and heating option for your events.
We suggest that one ton of cooling is for every 15 square meters(160 square feet) in event tents with standard eave height. For example, for a 20x30m tent (600 sqm) you will need about 40 tons. The best option is Anyway, the amount of cooling you choose will depend on all heat generating elements. So you must take time of day for event, number of people, surrounding area, lights, and cooking equipment into consideration.

Here at Jiejian, we offer range of AC units from 2 ton portable air conditioners to 30 ton HVAC units.