The temps are hitting record figures throughout the country and many homes are using some variety of air conditioner to combat the smoldering heat. While we are all grateful that your air conditioner is functioning, the experts at A2Z Air Inc in Boynton Beach wants to give you a glimpse at just how an AC system works.
The Basics
There’s plenty of science regarding keeping your home cool. Your air conditioner operates in a comparable way to your refrigerator, but your AC has a bigger responsibility to manage. Both your fridge and AC cool with a consistent loop of refrigerant, with your AC this refrigerant loops from inside to the outdoors. This refrigerant effortlessly alters from a liquid to gas and back to a liquid again. It goes into your residence as a sub-cooled liquid and as it evaporates it soaks in heat from the indoors and reverts back into vapor. This vapor then travels back to the unit located outdoors where the heat is freed and is then condensed back into a sub-cooled liquid.
Four Components
There are 4 central sections to your AC system: a compressor, an evaporator coil, the condensing coil and an expansion valve.
The evaporator coil is where your refrigerant evaporates from a sub-cooled liquid into a super-heated vapor. This component can be found in the home, in your garage or sometimes in your attic. Warm air transports across the cold evaporator coil and the heat is taken from the air. This cooled air is then sent throughout your home.
Your compressor sits in your outdoor condensing unit. The super-heated vapor from your evaporator coil goes into the compressor which raises the pressure of the vapor until it is changed into hot, high pressure vapor. The hot vapor then enters back into the condenser coil where less hot outdoor air runs across the coil, heat is pushed outdoors and the refrigerant is changed back into a sub-cooled liquid. The sub-cooled liquid then goes back to the indoor evaporator coil via an expansion valve or metering device. This process is continually repeated.
That completes your physics lesson of the day…your air conditioner runs on an endless loop of science. We know that it’s not as top-priority to you how it works, but that it’s working. If you’d like to chat about staying cool and comfortable in Boynton Beach give us a call at 561-270-6228. Thanks to science and our pros, you’ll get through this hot summer.