Central Air Conditioning Terms
- Learn the relevant terms to intelligently discuss central air conditioners.air conditioner, conditioning image by Greg Pickens from Fotolia.com
A central air conditioning system will keep your entire home cool, maintaining an even, comfortable temperature. By learning the terms related to air conditioners, you can more effectively select an air conditioner and then discuss installation, maintenance and repair with heating/cooling professionals. While air conditioning jargon draws on a fairly extensive lexicon, familiarizing yourself with some of the key terms can make a substantial difference. - The air conditioner itself is the complete set of equipment that works to regulate air temperature, humidity, purity and movement.
- The air handler is a component of the central air conditioner, located indoors, that works to distribute the air throughout the home. It is also known as the indoor unit. In the case of a heating system, a furnace would serve this purpose.
- The capacity of an air conditioner is its ability to cool a certain amount of space. Usually capacity is expressed in tons, unlike heating systems, where capacity is expressed in British thermal units.
- The compressor is the "heart" of the air conditioner system. Located outdoors, it pumps the cooling refrigerant liquid from the indoor evaporator to the outdoor condenser, and then back indoors to the evaporator. A compressor must maintain a level of pressure sufficient to keep the refrigerant flowing at a rate that maintains your home at the desired temperature.
- Condensers may use air, water or evaporation to transfer heat from the air conditioning system to another element. There are air-cooled condensers, water-cooled condensers and evaporative condensers, which use a combination of air and water.
- The evaporator absorbs heat from surrounding liquid or air and uses refrigerant to cool it. It may also be referred to as a cooling coil, a blower coil, a chilling unit or an indoor coil. It uses an evaporator coil, a series of refrigerant-filled tubes, to effect cooling.
- A straight cool system is a kind of air-conditioning system only has a cooling cycle. Some homes combine a straight cool system with separate gas, oil or electric strip heating.
- Refrigerant is the substance that air conditioners use to effect cooling. It may either expand or vaporize to cool another medium.
- Relative humidity is the ratio of air's moisture, or humidity, to the maximum humidity it can reach without forming condensation. The relative humidity changes with air temperature, as air can sustain different levels of humidity at different temperatures. Usually relative humidity is expressed as a percentage.
