How Air Conditioners Work.

How air conditioners work.

Today's air conditioners are more efficient and more comfortable than ever.

Smiley Heating and Cooling is dedicated to providing you cool, comfortable clean air whenever and whereever you need it. The air conditioner in your home is a relatively high investment and Smiley can help you decide exactly what type and size cooling unit you need for your particular size of home.

Below are listed some of the different air conditioning packages that are available.

Split System Air Conditioners
Ductless Split Systems
Package Air Conditioners
Window or Wall Units
Evaporative Coolers

As you have seen, air conditioners come in all sizes and shapes.

How an Air Conditioner Works

To help explain how an air conditioner works we can use the example of evaporation. If you were to hold your hand close to your mouth, lets say about 6 inches, now blow on your hand.  It should feel cool, even though the temperature of your body is warmer than the air around you, the air passing across your hand will feel cool. The reason for the coolness, is caused by a factor called evaporation of the moisture on your hand.

From earlier school, we remember that they taught us that when a liquid evaporates, it absorbs heat.  In an air conditioner we use a liquid called refrigerant. You may be more familiar with the term Freon.  This refrigerant (freon) moves through the air conditioning system by a compressor.  The refrigerant is sent thruough a coil called the condensor and this is where it is cooled down to remove heat. The removal of the heat from this liquid freon turns the gas back into liquid.

So bottom line is that your indoor unit which we call the air handler passes air across the indoor evaporator coil, and that absorbs heat from the air into the refrigerant (freon) in the coil. Now the refrigerant flows out to the outside where it passes thru the condensor coil.

So bottom line is that an air conditioner does not make cool air, it simply removes the heat from the air resulting in a cooling of the air.

Air conditioners are available in many sizes, capacities and prices. The most common type which  I am sure you are familiar with is the window air conditioner. The window unit is a simple and relatively inexpensive way to cool a small area.

Author
Tom Chambers