Home Air Conditioning Theory
Home air conditioning works to cool your home similar to the way a refrigerator operates to keep your food cold. The three main components of an air conditioning or cooling system are: a compressor, a condenser and an evaporator. This "closed system" air conditioning process involves a little chemistry (refrigerant), a little physics (condensation, evaporation), and electricity for the power source to make it all happen (compressor, thermostat, etc.). Does this Spark an idea?
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Warm to Cool
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Most descriptions of home air conditioning will point out that the system does not merely blow cool air into the rooms of your house, but rather it involves the removal of hot air and humidity, which produces cool air that is then blown into your home to keep the rooms conditioned. The system requires the use of a refrigerant, which has the ability to change from a gas to a liquid in a very short amount of time.
Compression
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It all starts with the compressor. This is usually located on the outside of your house. The compressor delivers the refrigerant as a gas to the condenser---also found in the outside unit---and maintains a specific rate of flow and pressure for the refrigerant throughout the entire cooling cycle. As the outside air passes over the condenser, the refrigerant turns from a gas to a liquid. Hot air, a byproduct of this condensation process, is merely released and fanned back to the outside of the home.
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Meter
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Next, the high pressure liquid refrigerant flows or travels inside the house to the metering device, which quickly drops the pressure of the liquid resulting in an accompanying quick drop in temperature, from over 100 degrees Fahrenheit to around 40 degrees. This causes the liquid to evaporate immediately, which now drops to a much lower pressure and temperature as it makes its way through the evaporator coils. The liquid again becomes a gas.
Evaporation
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The air from inside the house that flows over the evaporator coils, though, will be much warmer---say, about 40 degrees Fahrenheit warmer---than the air inside the coils. The warm house air, including moisture, is absorbed by the evaporating refrigerant. This causes the air flowing over the coils to become cool, and it is this cooled or conditioned air that is blown by the furnace fan through the air ducts to cool the rooms of your house.
Thermostat
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The whole air conditioning process and house temperature is monitored by the inclusion of a thermostat device inside the home, which reads when the temperature is above a preset limit, triggering the start of the air conditioner. The same device will cycle the system off when it senses that the air has been cooled adequately to the desired temperature preset by the homeowner. This system works the same way, only in reverse, for heating the home during winter if your air conditioning system uses a heat pump in the outdoor unit.
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References
- Photo Credit air conditioner vent image by Tammy Mobley from Fotolia.com
