How Does Central Air Conditioning Work?

Central air conditioning helps keep your home cool and reduces humidity levels. By transferring heat from air located inside your home to the outside, conditioned and cooled air is left to be re-circulated. Using electricity as its power source, the compressor inside an air conditioning unit pumps coolant, or refrigerant, back and forth to gather heat and moisture from indoors. Warm air from inside is blown over the cooling coil, which is connected to the compressor, and then pumped back into your home.

Buying Tips

Always replace the whole air conditioning system (systems on average last 15 years give a or take a few years) as the efficiency (SEER rating ) is base on a matched indoor and outdoor coil. To replace a single component (outside condenser or indoor coil) will cost less initially but you’ll not have the new “system efficiency”. In addition if your compressor was “burned”, contamination from the old system can cut in half the life expectancy of your new outdoor condenser. An older remaining component, due to it’s age, will require future expensive repairs and eventually will still have to be replaced! Finally, the performance of a mixture of a new and a old component would be about 30%. Comfort on a hot day is the key point to owning an air conditioning system.

Correct system sizing, proper installation and yearly professional maintenance are the three main keys to a good working system. All manufactures in the industry have very similar designs and use the same vendors for most major components – the service provider’s installation and system sizing are the key factors in equipment performance and life cycle.