An air conditioner plays an important role in keeping your home or office comfortable when we experience our extreme hot and humid summer days! Here is an overview of how they work:

A thermostat registers inside air is too warm, and signals the air conditioner to turn on. The outdoor unit begins compressing a gas called refrigerant. Compressing the gas and sending it through a coil actually condenses it to a liquid, and dissipates heat energy into the outside air.

The chilled liquid is then pumped inside to the indoor coil. The indoor coil is called an evaporator coil. It is a series of metal tubing and fins contained in a metal enclosure referred to as an air handler or coil enclosure on a furnace.

A fan motor, in the air handler or furnace powers on, and pulls air from the return air duct(s) in your home. The warm air is first filtered and then forced through the coil where heat energy is absorbed by the chilled coil. This cools the air before it is distributed back into the home via ductwork. The refrigerant leaves the indoor coil as a hot gas to be returned to the outdoor unit and processed into a cool liquid.

This process is repeated until the thermostat signals the air conditioner that its set point is reached and to turn off.