Sizing central air conditioning. Will 2 tons do it?

Ask the salesman if it will be adequate or if you should go with a larger system. Maybe he suggested that size because it needs to be that size in order to work correctly with your matching sized furnace.

If the house is six years old most of the time the WARRANTY is ten years on a compressor from the manufacture, and three tons is light, more like 3.5 tons, around 400-500sf per ton. Get the model and serial and call American Standard they will inform you of the warranty! If under warranty the job should be no more than 500-600 dollars unless you like to spend money! And to upgrade the air handler will double the price of the job. I wish I had customers like you who have no problem replacing the A/C system every six years. Was this the same company who installed the A/C system in the first place. Why did the compressor fail, if you do not find the reason why the old compressor failed then the new one will fail too, they should not go bad for no reason. Is the compressor a burn out which means a electrical problem, did it lock up due to lack of oil a piping problem or low on gas, or are the valves bad due to eating liquid freon a dirty coil, or over charged. You could have a problem in the panel box, the disconnect box bad, freon leak, no hard start on a TXV system, piping problems? Many questions and no answers. A well installed system will last for 15-25 years with no problems.

That does seem a little on the small side. Down here in Louisiana they use 300 square feet per ton. That could be because of the humidity, though. I am an architectural drafter and I have calculated a 5 ton unit for the entire 1600 sq. ft. Maybe you could get a second opinion or ask the salesman what he's basing the size of the unit on. Ask him to give you a breakdown of his calculations. Good luck.

My house is colonial at 1728 sq ft. I figured about 14,000 btu/hr or about 1.2 tons if you can keep the doors closed.

I have a 7,000 window AC downstairs and an 8000 window AC upstairs. On very hot days the house is at 74-76 even with the kids going in and out.

So long as your was built in the last 25 years, 2 tons should be fine.

Tonnage calculator.

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=siz...

When I had a 2600 s.f one story home I had a single 5 ton unit. Now that I have a 2 story 3100 s.f. there are 2 separate units. One up, one down but it doesn't say the tonnage.

2 tons would do the job and it might even be over enough