In HVAC, there are established recommendations of how many CFM per

BTU of heating and cooling a unit should have. In most cases, we use
CFM per ton. However, you can simply convert tons to BTUs to get an
idea of how many CFM per BTU is adequate.

Based on this, we can convert BTU to CFM as well as CFM to BTU. Further on,
you will find these two charts:

• BTU To CFM Chart. This 1st chart will tell you how many CFMs
you need to adequately propagate 5000 BTU to 100,000 BTU of
heating or cooling output through your home.
• CFM To BTU Chart. This 2nd chart will tell you how many BTUs of
heating or cooling you can propagate through your home if your
HVAC system can generate anywhere from 100 CFM to 4000
CFM or airflow.

• CFM or Cubic Feet per Minute is a measure of airflow. HVAC units like
furnaces and air conditioners can produce anywhere from 100 CFM to
over 4000 CFM airflow.
• BTU or British Thermal Unit is a measure of heating or cooling output.
Smaller window and portable AC units can produce as little as 5000 BTU
and 6000 BTU, respectively. Bigger AC units can produce well over
80,000 BTU of cooling output and big furnaces can easily produce over
100,000 BTU.

There are two HVAC rules of thumb we can use to figure out how many CFM
per BTU we need:

• For 1 ton of heating/cooling, we need about 400 CFM of airflow.

You can read more about CFM per ton metrics here.
• 1 ton of heating/cooling is equal to 12,000 BTU. You can read
more about the ton to BTU conversion in HVAC here.

The primary reason for figuring out how many CFM you need is to
get homogeneous heating or cooling output without localized hot spots.
Namely, we need 400 CFM of airflow per ton. 1 ton is equal to 12,000 BTU.
That means that, in order to get the CFM per BTU, we have to divide the

CFM Per BTU = (400 CFM/Ton) / (12,000 BTU/Ton) = 0.0033 CFM Per BTU
Basically, we need 0.0033 CFM per BTU of heating or cooling. That is equal to
1/30 CFM per BTU.

In short, 30 BTU of heating and cooling is produced with 1 CFM of airflow;

this is the BTU per CFM relationship.

Based on this CFM per BTU conversion, we can check how many CFM do
differently sized HVAC units (furnaces, AC units) require:

BTU To CFM Chart

In this 1st chart, we can have a look at HVAC units with different BTU outputs
and see how many CFM of airflow do they roughly need to bring that
heating/cooling into our home:

HVAC BTU Output: Required CFMs (Airflow):

5000 BTU Unit 167 CFM

6000 BTU Unit 200 CFM

7000 BTU Unit 233 CFM

8000 BTU Unit 267 CFM

9000 BTU Unit 300 CFM

10,000 BTU Unit 333 CFM

11,000 BTU Unit 367 CFM

12,000 BTU Unit 400 CFM

14,000 BTU Unit 467 CFM

15,000 BTU Unit 500 CFM

18,000 BTU Unit 600 CFM

24,000 BTU Unit 800 CFM

 30,000 BTU Unit 1000 CFM

36,000 BTU Unit 1200 CFM

42,000 BTU Unit 1400 CFM

48,000 BTU Unit 1600 CFM

54,000 BTU Unit 1800 CFM

60,000 BTU Unit 2000 CFM

100,000 BTU Unit 3333 CFM

As you can see, you will need about 1000 CFM of airflow to propagate 30,000
BTU of heating or cooling output through your home.

Let’s have a look at the CFM to BTU chart as well:

CFM To BTU Chart

In this 2nd chart, we can have a look at HVAC units that produce different
airflow (CFMs) and how much BTU heating or cooling output you will likely see
these units producing:

CFMs Produced (Airflow): Estimated BTU Output:

100 CFM 3000 BTU

200 CFM 6000 BTU

300 CFM 9000 BTU

400 CFM 12,000 BTU

500 CFM 15,000 BTU

600 CFM 18,000 BTU

700 CFM 21,000 BTU

800 CFM 24,000 BTU

 900 CFM 27,000 BTU

1000 CFM 30,000 BTU

1200 CFM 36,000 BTU

1400 CFM 42,000 BTU

1600 CFM 48,000 BTU

1800 CFM 54,000 BTU

2000 CFM 60,000 BTU

2500 CFM 75,000 BTU

3000 CFM 90,000 BTU

3500 CFM 105,000 BTU

4000 CFM 120,000 BTU

Example: With 500 CFM airflow, your HVAC unit will be able to adequately
propagate 15,000 BTU of heating or cooling output throughout your home.