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Don’t let the summer heat get you down.
When the thermostat outside is nearing triple digits, we need to make sure our air conditioning will be running with ease. Our homes are a sanctuary against boiling summers, but if we aren’t taking the necessary steps with professional air conditioning maintenance services, our sanctuary could turn into a sauna. When we think “professional,” we should think about the indoor air quality that Home Comfort USA and their all-star technicians offer for the comfort of your home.
It’s like magic until you understand how it operates.
Most households have HVAC units. The term HVAC can be confusing because it makes it sound like our heating and cooling systems are one and the same, which couldn’t be further from the truth. The only similarity between how you heat your home in the winter and cool it during the summer is the ductwork. Everything else plays for the heating team or the cooling team, not both.
Our air conditioner’s work begins outside with the condensing unit (that box outside your house). The condensing unit consists of five C’s:
The cagey appearance on the outside is where the unit’s cooling fins reside. When operating properly, the condenser fan draws the outside air in through the cooling fins.
Inside the condenser unit, the compressor turns the unit’s coolant from a gaseous state to a hot liquid state and sends it through the condenser coils. The condenser coils wrap their way around the entire perimeter (except at the top) of the condensing unit just behind the cooling fins.
The liquid coolant cools down as it travels through the condenser coils and is given an assist by the cooler outside air brought in by the condenser fan. As the heat dissipates through the coils, the condenser fan blows the heat back out into the open air through the top of the condensing unit.
After the coolant winds its way through the condenser coils, it makes its way inside the home to the evaporator coils where it turns back into a gas and is sent back to the compressor outside. The cycle continues as the air conditioning unit is running.
The second part of a common air conditioning system consists of the:
When the liquid coolant runs through the evaporator coils, the warm air inside our homes is drawn over them. Some of the warm air contacts the much cooler evaporator coils, condensates, and collects into the furnace’s drip pan, which sends the water through a drain and out of the house. The air that doesn’t condensate, cools down and is sent through the duct system back into our main living areas—cooling the house down.
The cool air circulates through the house, warms, and is drawn back into the furnace through the vents near the ceiling. The house’s warm air is drawn into the furnace with the help of a fan and passes through a filter that collects dust and debris.
Understanding how our air conditioning units work is important. On the one hand, it allows us to communicate more effectively with professional technicians if we need our systems diagnosed. On the other, we can often identify the cause of some problems without needing to call a professional.
If our filters need to be changed, we can certainly take care of that ourselves. However, there are many issues we should absolutely leave to trustworthy professionals like those at Home Comfort USA.
Air conditioning units are typically in each and every home across the United States, and we don’t often consider how much ingenuity goes into these comfort-providing systems. Thankfully, we just covered the basics and are better off because of it. Now, how do we make sure our AC units are ready for the dog days of summer?