The temperatures are reaching record numbers throughout the country and many homes are utilizing some type of air conditioner to beat the summer heat. While we are all appreciative that your air conditioner is functioning, the experts at Franklin's Heating & Air Conditioning, Inc in Oxford would like to teach you how it works.
The Basics
There’s a plethora of science behind keeping your home cooler. Your air conditioner functions in a parallel way to your refrigerator, however your cooling system has a larger responsibility to handle. Both your fridge and AC cool with a consistent loop of refrigerant, however with the air conditioner this refrigerant loops from inside to outside your home. This refrigerant quickly changes from a liquid to gas and back to a liquid again. It enters your residence 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 moves back to the unit outside where the heat is let go and is then condensed back into a sub-cooled liquid.
Four Components
There are 4 core components to your AC system: 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 found indoors, in your garage or possibly in your attic. Warm air transports through the cold evaporator coil and the heat is separated from the air. This cooled air is then transferred throughout the space inside your home.
Your compressor sits in your outdoor condensing unit. The super-heated vapor from your evaporator coil flows into the compressor which raises the pressure of the vapor until it is transformed into hot, high pressure vapor. The hot vapor then moves back into the condenser coil where less hot outdoor air moves across the coil, heat is released outdoors and the refrigerant is converted back into a sub-cooled liquid. The sub-cooled liquid returns to the indoor evaporator coil by an expansion valve or metering device. This continues repeatedly throughout the process.
That completes your physics lesson for now…your air conditioner operates on an endless loop of science. We realize that it’s not as important to you how it works, but that it’s working. If you’d like to talk about staying cool and comfortable in Oxford contact us at 662-281-1231. Thanks to science and our pros, you’ll get through this hot summer.