The temperatures are climbing to record highs throughout the U.S. and most homes are running some variety of air conditioner to battle the seasonal heat. Though we are all appreciative that your air conditioner runs, the experts at Hix Air Conditioning Service, Inc. in Muskogee would like to tell you how it works.
The Basics
There’s a plethora of science involved in keeping your living space at a comfortable temperature. Your air conditioner functions in a similar way to your refrigerator, however your AC has a bigger task to tackle. Both your fridge and AC cool with a reoccurring loop of refrigerant, in your air conditioner this refrigerant loops from inside to to the external part of your home. This refrigerant easily alters from a liquid to gas and back to a liquid again. It enters your house as a sub-cooled liquid and as it evaporates it takes in heat from your indoor air and expands back into vapor. This vapor then travels back to your outdoor unit where the heat is freed and is then condensed back into a sub-cooled liquid.
Four Components
There are 4 main components to your
air conditioner unit: a compressor, an evaporator coil, the condensing coil and an expansion valve.
The evaporator coil is the place 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 passes through the cold evaporator coil and the heat is separated from the air. This cooled air is then released 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 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 moved outdoors and the refrigerant is adapted 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 of the day…your air conditioner functions on an relentless loop of science. We understand that it’s not as important to you how it works, but that it’s working. If you’d like to chat about staying cool and comfortable in Muskogee give us a call at 918-682-8238. Thanks to science and our pros, you’ll get through this hot summer.