Your climate thermostat helps you regulate the temperature inside your home. There are four main components of an air conditioning system: the evaporator, the condenser, the compressor and the expansion valve. Each of these parts works in harmony to keep the air conditioner running like a well-oiled machine. The compressor, also known as “the heart of an air conditioning system”, pumps refrigerant throughout the system.
If the air that enters your home is hot, it may mean that the compressor is not pumping enough refrigerant through the air conditioning system. Central air conditioning systems do much more than just cool your home during hot weather. They also reduce humidity and help filter air by expelling allergens and pollutants through air ducts, as well as to the outside. An air conditioner is a dynamic appliance with several moving parts that push air in and out.
It has a colder side and a hotter side. Inside, the air conditioning unit consists of an evaporator coil, which is usually installed at the top of the gas oven inside the house. It also uses a thermostat and a fan, which expel gas through cooled coils and introduce it into the room (in the form of cold air). The outdoor unit contains the compressor, condenser, various electrical components and another fan.
This second fan has the task of expelling hot air to the outside. The expansion valve, located between the two coils, controls the flow of refrigerant to the evaporator. Most people are familiar with thermostats. A thermostat is a device or control system that is commonly used to regulate air to the desired temperature.
Air ducts are strategically placed in all buildings to serve as tunnels and provide maximum circulation. A motorized fan pushes warm air from inside the house into these ducts. The evaporator is a coil responsible for collecting and processing heat. Inside it there is a liquid refrigerant that absorbs hot air.
This refrigerant, which runs on electricity, experiences a pressure drop, causing it to spread and turn back to gas. Then, a fan blows cold air over colder coils and causes it to enter the room. A refrigerant is a substance that flows inside refrigeration lines along an indoor and outdoor unit. Liquid refrigerants typically include hydrofluorocarbons (or HFCs) and hydrocarbons.
These hydrocarbons are responsible for absorbing heat and then transporting it to the compressor. The compressor is a large electric pump responsible for heat transfer. It is located inside a part of an air conditioning unit that can be accessed from outside the house. It pressurizes the refrigerant gas so that it can be transported to the condenser.
The condenser is located inside an outdoor unit. As its name suggests, condensers condense and convert the refrigerant gas back into liquid. It then proceeds to dissipate hot air from outside. Located between cooled evaporator coils and scorching condenser coils, an expansion valve controls how much refrigerant enters the evaporator.
With proper preventive maintenance, many of these air conditioner repairs can be prevented, detected early, and addressed before you run out of air conditioning in summer's peak. As warm air from inside your home enters your AC unit, it passes through cold evaporator coils which extract heat and cool down the air. With this new knowledge about AC components, you should be able to better understand how your AC works. Perhaps most importantly of all AC components is its compressor - its workhorse - which pumps refrigerant throughout its system.
An AC unit is like an orchestra with many different parts working together symphonically to achieve its final result - providing hot or cold air to your room - while using a fan to move air from one component to another.
