You can find 12000 BTU air conditioners in wall, window, portable, and split wall-mounted types. (A split air conditioning unit means the evaporator is inside, but the condenser unit is on the outside of the building.) A 12000 BTU air conditioner is a rather large air conditioner and it is perfect for cooling and dehumidifying rooms of approximately 600 square feet in size. A 12000 BTU a / c is sometimes called a "one ton" unit. But this has nothing to do with weight, this simply describes the power output.
In order to have sufficient electricity to run a 12000 BTU air conditioner, you'll need either 120- or 240-volt power. For air conditioners using less than 7.5 amps, you can just plug them into a standard outlet, although you'll need a dedicated circuit for units drawing on more power than that. 240-volt circuits are typically only needed for air conditioners with outputs greater than 12000 BTUs. (A BTU is a British Thermal Unit and this describes how much output a particular air conditioning unit has.)
Some typical features of such an a / c unit would be:
* Cools rooms 600 to 640 square feet in size
* Electronic controls for convenience and ease of programming
* Antimicrobial mesh filter
* Tilt-out filter access
* Eight-way air direction control
Of course, the purpose of any air conditioning unit is to both cool and dehumidify. Depending on where you live, one of these purposes may be more important to you than the other. For instance, if you live in the American Southwest it will be more important for you to cool a room than to dehumidify it. But if you live in southern Florida, you'll likely need to take full advantage of both features. Today's a / c units have some fine-tuning controls so that you do not waste energy and you can set a unit's capacity up to do what you most need done.
It's important to pay attention to the fact that a 12000 BTU a / c unit is designed to cool and dehumidify quite large rooms, because with their power draw you do not want to waste your money on the purchase and installation of such a large unit and then run up an electric bill that need not be so high unless it is a necessity. Some homes, for example, have open rooms that make such a large unit ideal for use, but if your home has closed-off rooms you might not need a such a large model.
It's possible that you might need a mixture of more than one size of a / c unit, such as a 12000 BTU a / c unit and some other, smaller a / c unit. It all depends upon the layout of your home or office building. Figure out carefully how large your areas are where you need air conditioning and do your best to figure out how much "drift" there will be, if any, between different rooms and areas. Take all these considerations into account, and make a smart, economical choice when considering your a / c unit.