Brought to you by the professionals at Southport Home Services
Sometimes it seems like magic. Press a few buttons and suddenly your house is cooler and more comfortable. Here at Southport Home Services, we do think central air is a magical thing, but magic is not behind how an air conditioner works. An air conditioner is a combined effort between chemistry and mechanics. Working together, they bring you cool air that helps keep your home comfortable.
Parts of an air conditioning system.
There are four main parts to an air conditioning system. They are the condenser, compressor, expansion device, and evaporation coil. The condenser is the big metal box that sits outside your house. This is what most people think of when air conditioning is mentioned. There are three more parts that are not as well-known as the condenser. The compressor and expansion device both play an important part in the process but cannot be seen as easily as the condenser. The evaporation coil sits inside your furnace, near the top. All four of these parts create a loop that cools down your house
How the parts work together.
As we mentioned before, the four main parts form a loop. An air conditioner is a continuous cycle of changing temperatures. There is a liquid inside of your air conditioning system called Freon. This is what is pumped through the loop continuously to cool down your house. This liquid actually changes from a liquid to a gas, and then back to a liquid throughout the loop. If we start the cycle at the condenser, the Freon is in a hot liquid state. Here the condenser is drawing the heat out of the Freon and cooling it down. Then it keeps on moving on its way to the evaporation coil. On its way there, the Freon turns back into a cool gaseous state, with the help of an expansion device. This cool gas is then pumped through the evaporation coil where a blower blows air over the cool coil. This air will pass over the coil and become the cool air that makes your house comfortable. After the coil, the gas goes through a compressor. This compressor brings the Freon to its hot liquid state where the condenser then can draw the heat back out from it. This loop continues on and on in order to bring your home the comfort you need.
Breaking it down as we did makes it sound pretty simple. When in reality, it is a complicated and precise process that most times requires a professional touch. We hope this article helped pique your interest and inform you about the air-conditioning process. If you do have an air conditioning emergency, need service, or want a free estimate on replacement just give us a call here at Southport Home Services! You can also visit our website for more information.
