We still use BTU's for small Furnace and Air Conditioner sizing...
For larger units its BTUs for furnaces and Tons of cooling for Air
Conditioners.
Everyone knows that 12,000 btus is required to melt 1 ton of ice. Hence
12,000 btus is equal to "one ton" of cooling.
Who would have known that we could figure out some method to represent a
measure of energy by a measure of weight!
So its a value that we can relate to. And its not at all confusing!
:-/
BTUs...... *defined* as the amount of heat required to raise the
temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit
So now you know why we can't get in gear with the metric system.
Nothing would work. We would have to discard all of our old notions of
hot and cold.
We would be buying the wrong size air conditioners and furnaces! Our
houses would be way too hot when we set the thermostat to 70 degrees C...
Gas.... BTU's ha ha ha... no, we have invented a different unit of
measure called the Therm.
A Therm is 100,000 BTUS of gas.
Currently a Therm of natural gas costs about $0.75 for me right now.
On my gas bill, I get a meter reading from the meter on the side of my
house. That meter reading is based on 1/2 psi gas delivery,
unfortunately I have 2 psi gas delivery, so they apply a correction
factor to get cubic feet that is then translated into therms based upon
some testing that occurred on their gas some time ago for heat content.
I think my gas bill is more of an estimation of my gas use rather than
an actual measurement!
MJs of gas would make way too much sense.
Dave
Wikipedia suggests that you still use BTUs for gas?
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