Ton of Cooling

Before refrigeration air conditioning was developed, cooling was taken by hoarding big blocks of ice. When cooling machines began to get used, they rated their capacity by the same amount of ice liquefied in a day, which is where the word “ton” arrived from sizing air conditioning.

A ton of cooling is now described as delivering 12,000 BTU/hour of cooling. BTU is short for British Thermal Unit (and is a unit that the British do not use) The BTU is a unit of heating - or in this case, cooling - energy. 

Window type air conditioner is usually less than one ton while a small home central air conditioner is about two tons and a large one is about five tons.

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