The temperatures are climbing to record highs around the U.S. and the majority of homes are utilizing some variety of air conditioner to beat the summer heat. Although we are all thankful that your air conditioner works, the team at Bishop Heating & Air Conditioning in Bishop would like to inform you how it works.
The Basics
There’s plenty of science involved in keeping your home cool. Your air conditioner functions in a comparable way to your refrigerator, however your air conditioner has a bigger task to tackle. Both your fridge and AC cool with a reoccurring loop of refrigerant, however with the air conditioner this refrigerant loops from inside to to the external part of your home. This refrigerant quickly alters from a liquid to gas and back to a liquid again. It goes into your home as a sub-cooled liquid and as it evaporates it soaks in heat from inside the home and expands back into vapor. This vapor then travels back to your outdoor unit where the heat is let go and is then condensed back into a sub-cooled liquid.
Four Components
There are 4 central components to your
air conditioner unit: a compressor, an evaporator coil, the condensing coil and an expansion valve.
The evaporator coil is the location your refrigerant evaporates from a sub-cooled liquid into a super-heated vapor. This component can be established in the home, in your garage or sometimes in your attic. Warm air passes through the cold evaporator coil and the heat is removed from the air. This cooled air is then released throughout your indoor space.
Your compressor resides in your outdoor condensing unit. The super-heated vapor from your evaporator coil flows into the compressor which increases the pressure of the vapor until it is changed into hot, high pressure vapor. The hot vapor then moves back into the condenser coil where less hot outdoor air runs across the coil, heat is moved outdoors and the refrigerant is converted 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 you are staying cool. If you’d like to chat about staying cool and comfortable in Bishop you can reach us at 760-784-9034. Thanks to science and our pros, you’ll get through this hot summer.