The popular season is in full swing with record heat across the country, and with a lot households having some kind of air conditioner, it’s the most effective way to beat the heat. As you are unwinding in your comfortably cool home or office, thankful that your air conditioner functions, let’s gain some insight at how a typical central heating and cooling system works.
The Basics
Your air conditioner runs the similar to your refrigerator, but understandably instead of keeping a little space cool, it has to work to cool down your whole house. Both use a refrigerant that converts swiftly from liquid to gas, back to liquid again. In your air conditioner, the refrigerant is on a consistent ring from the outdoors to the inside of your home. It goes into the house as a sub-cooled liquid that evaporates and collects or takes in heat from the air in your home, expands back into vapor, then back to the outside condensing unit where it dissipates the heat and is switched back to a sub-cooled liquid.
The Components
Your AC system is created out of four key pieces: an evaporator coil, a compressor, a condensing coil, and an expansion valve or metering device.
The component where your refrigerant evaporates from a sub-cooled liquid to a super-heated vapor is called the evaporator coil, which may be inside, in your attic, or in your garage. As warm indoor air is blown over the cold evaporator coil, heat is detached from the air…and the cooler air is pushed within your house.
From the evaporator coil, the now super-heated vapor refrigerant goes back to the compressor located in your exterior condensing unit. The compressor enhances the pressure of the vapor until it shifts into a hot, high pressure vapor. The now super-hot vapor meets the condenser coil where a smaller amount hot air blows by the coil, removing heat to the outdoors, and changes the refrigerant to a sub-cooled liquid. The sub-cooled liquid refrigerant is returned to the indoor evaporator coil where, through an expansion valve or metering device, the process is replicated.
Your AC system is a constant loop of movement. We realize the important thing to you likely isn’t what happens behind the scenes, but that it’s functioning the right way. If you’d like to know the inner workings or just about remaining cool, give our professionals a call at 304-707-0600. We will team up with you and the laws of physics to confirm you cool this time around.