Air Conditioning

Air conditioners are at once remarkably simple and sophisticated machines. In order to cool down air and circulate it through your room, apartment, or office, you need to invest a lot of thermal energy. Believe it or not, your refrigerator and air conditioner use far more heat energy than your stove and heater do.

The thermodynamic concepts behind air conditioning are relatively easy to understand. In single room air conditioners, what happens is that hot air–usually produced via a furnace or motor of some kind–gets pumped into the air-conditioning unit. This energy excites the Freon gas molecules in the machine’s condenser. These molecules then quickly cool down, forming a liquid, which then cools on coils and evaporates, absorbing heat from the environment. This cold Freon gas then circulates back into the so-called hot portion of the unit and the cycle begins again.

The Physics of Air Conditioning
Air conditioners come in a range of sizes and capacities. Room and portable air conditioners are small units that work best on modestly-sized, enclosed places. Casement air conditioners and PTU units can tackle bigger jobs. There are also cooling/heating air conditioners as well as many split and through-the-wall systems. Large industrial complexes use air conditioners engineered for precise temperature control to create the best conditions for fabrication.

Cool air usually gets blown through a filter before it reaches the room. The filter is responsible for removing dust and particulate matter and, in some cases, microbes from the air. Poor ventilation, broken filters, and improper tube alignment can all lead to significant air quality problems. Unless you are an expert mechanic, don’t try to fix these machines yourself–call a professional.

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