AC Questions...HELP!!!

Okay...here's our situation:
We have a 1600 sq. foot ranch - living room, kitchen, den in the front and bedrooms in the back.
We currently have an 18,000 BTU wall A/C in the living room that was purchased the year we bought the house(2005). It does not even come close to cooling the whole house - it barely cools the living room.
We do have full sun exposure all day - no trees in front or back and large windows in front.

The question is -
do we
A: Have the wall unit serviced in the hope it's just clogged and not cooling properly?
B: Buy a new wall unit?
C: Get a smaller unit for the den at the other end of the house in the hopes that the air will then get circulated through the front of the house?

I'm so confused at this point - and have no idea what to do!

Re: AC Questions...HELP!!!

No matter what the BTU size, one window unit will never cool an entire floor. You really need to get additional units for other rooms/areas.

Do you keep the sun from coming through the southern windows? Blinds, shades, etc? That will cut down on heat quite a bit.

Re: AC Questions...HELP!!!

Message edited 11/28/2011 8:30:15 PM.

Re: AC Questions...HELP!!!

You need an additional 12000-15000 BTU's to cool it off comfortably. Whether you get one additional unit that big or buy two separate ones for around 6000+BTU each.

But your current machine you have now is defintiely not going to cool all those rooms in your house. It probably has been working on overload for this long.

I would add extras. Either two small ones in two of your bedrooms........or one big one in the den or a common area depending where you spend most of your time. If the bedrooms are more important to you for cooling at night then I would add them to the bedrooms.....

HTH!

Re: AC Questions...HELP!!!

I would buy window units for the bedrooms and keep those doors closed so the air from your wall unit won't go in there. If you don't spend to much time in the bedroom in the evening i would only turn it on in there an hour before you go to bed.

Re: AC Questions...HELP!!!

I have a 23,000 btu unit in the wall in my living room. It's a freakin jet plane.

It cools my whole lower level except the bathroom off my kitchen which is the farthest and around a corner. It still gets in there but not as cool as the living room.

Re: AC Questions...HELP!!!

We put a seperate unit in our bedroom during the dog days of summer. And we close all the doors to the bedrooms when the AC is on.
We don't really use it that much, so it hasn't been overloaded often. We actually mostly use it when we have company..DH and I don't have issues with the heat.

I think we are going to end up getting another unit for the wall in the den at the opposite end of the house...maybe a 6000-8000 BTU unit and have the big one serviced and hope for the best.

thanks everyone for the advice!!