MBH To Tons Calculator: Convert mBTU To Tons (+ Chart)

In HVAC, you will sometimes need to convert MBH to tons. Both MBH (same as mBTU) and tons are units that denote the quantity of cooling or heating energy an AC, furnace, water heater, and other HVAC units produce. Converting MBT to tons (same as mBTU to tons) is quite easy, and we will show you how to do that.

To make things super easy, we prepared 3 vital resources you will need for this HVAC unit conversion. These are:

  1. MBH To Tons Formula. To adequately convert MBH to tons, we first need to convert MBH to BTU and then BTU to tons. We combined both of these conversions to create a formula that lets you easily convert mBTU to tons (we use MBH and mBTU interchangeably because they denote the same unit).
  2. MBH To Tons Calculator. Easy-to-use calculator; you just insert the MBH, and the calculator will automatically convert them these MBH to tons.
  3. MBH To Tons Conversion Chart. We have converted MBH from 1 MBH to 199 MBH into tons, and gathered all the results in a neat conversion table.
60 mbh furnace is 5 ton furnace
This is a 60 MBH gas furnace. You will find the ’60 MBH’ specs under ‘Heating Capacity’ on the specification sheet. 60 MBH is equal to 5 tons; that means that a 60 MBH furnace is a 5-ton furnace.

Let’s first look at the HVAC units we are converting:

  • MBH or mBTU is an HVAC unit that is equal to 1000 BTU (British Thermal Unit). The abbreviation of this unit is a bit off; we are talking about 1000s of BTU and the adequate unit would be kBTU (kilo- British Thermal Units) since k = 1000. Example: A 50 MBH unit is a 50,000 BTU unit.
  • Ton is an HVAC unit that is equal to 12,000 BTU. 1 ton is equal to 12,000 BTU, 2 tons is equal to 24,000 BTU, 3 tons is equal to 36,000 BTU, and so on.

As you can see, both of these units relate to BTU – the basic unit for cooling and heating in HVAC. We can deduce a formula that directly converts MBH to BTU by merging these two relationships:

  1. MBH = 1000 BTU.
  2. Ton = 12,000 BTU.

If we merge these two relationships, we get this simple MBH to BTU (or mBTU to BTU) formula:

Tons = MBH / 12

Quick example of how to use this equation: Let’s say that we have a 48 MBH air conditioner. How many tons is 48 MBH? Simple. Just insert 48 MBH in this equation like this:

Tons = 48 MBH / 12 = 4 Tons

Result: 48 MBH is equal to 4 tons.

We can see that:

  • 1 MBH is equal to 1/12 of a ton (or 0.833 tons).
  • 1 ton is equal to 12 MBH.

You can use this formula to convert MBH to tons manually (with a pocket calculator). To make this easier, we have created this following mBTU to tons calculator (complete with the conversion chart that you will find after the calculator):

MBH To Tons Calculator

Here you just insert MBH and the calculator will automatically convert them to tons:

 

Example of how to use this conversion calculator: Let’s say you want to convert 30 MBH to tons. Just slide the slider in the calculator to ’30’ and you get the result: 30 MBH is equal to 2.5 tons.

This is just one example. You can play around with the numbers to see how tons change depending on the MBH input. We have also calculated a conversion chart for mBTU to tons. Here is the chart with the summarized results:

MBH To Tons Chart

MBH: Tons:
1 MBH 0.0833 Tons
12 MBH 1 Ton
18 MBH 1.5 Tons
24 MBH 2 Tons
30 MBH 2.5 Tons
36 MBH 3 Tons
48 MBH 4 Tons
60 MBH 5 Tons
72 MBH 6 Tons
84 MBH 7 Tons
96 MBH 8 Tons
108 MBH 9 Tons
120 MBH 10 Tons
140 MBH 11.67 Tons
160 MBH 13.33 Tons
180 MBH 15.00 Tons
199 MBH 16.58 Tons

You can find all the most common MBH to tons conversions here.

For example, the biggest allowable residential tankless water heater capacity is 199 MBH. How many tons is 199 MBH? Just check the chart; you can see that 199 MBH is equal to 16.58 tons.

With these 3 resources, you will be able to convert MBH to tons (mBTU to tons) quite easily. If you have some problems with the conversion, give us the numbers in the comments below, and we will help you figure it out.

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