The temperatures are hitting record numbers throughout the country and many homes are running some variety of air conditioner to combat the summer heat. While we are all thankful that your air conditioner works, the experts at Air Service Co. in Muldrow thought they would give you a look at how an air conditioner operates.
The Basics
There’s a plethora of science behind keeping your home cool. Your air conditioner runs in a similar way to your refrigerator, but your air conditioner has a bigger job 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 outside your home. This refrigerant quickly alters from a liquid to gas and back to a liquid again. It flows into your house as a sub-cooled liquid and as it evaporates it takes in heat from the indoors and reverts back into vapor. This vapor then transfers 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 central sections 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 possibly in your attic. Warm air transports across the cold evaporator coil and the heat is separated from the air. This cooled air is then transferred throughout your home.
Your compressor is located in your outdoor condensing unit. The super-heated vapor from your evaporator coil flows into the compressor which surges the pressure of the vapor until it is transformed into hot, high pressure vapor. The hot vapor then enters back into the condenser coil where less hot outdoor air flows across the coil, heat is pushed outdoors and the refrigerant is converted back into a sub-cooled liquid. This sub-cooled liquid is then returned to the indoor evaporator coil by an expansion valve or metering device. This process is continually repeated.
That concludes your physics lesson for now…your air conditioner functions on an never-ending loop of science. We realize that it’s not as top-priority to you how it works, but just the fact it’s running. If you’d like to chat about staying cool and comfortable in Muldrow give us a call at 918-212-8943. With the help of our team and science we’re going to make it through this sweltering summer.