Air Conditioning Systems & Its Energy Sources
v Air-cooled air conditioner systems: refers to the use of air to cool the compressor and the condenser coil used to return the refrigerant gas to a liquid state. These split systems usually have an inside evaporator cooling coil installed to work along with the blower in air condition and duct system which might also be sitting atop a heating furnace. The outside half of the equipment contains the compressor and condenser coil.
v Water cooler air conditioning systems: It uses water as a chiller to remove heat from the high temperature gas in the compressor/condenser unit.
v Evaporative coolers, also called "swamp coolers" rely on the evaporation of water to cool building air, rather than the movement of a refrigerant through cooling coils. Cooling towers, swamp coolers, and even a simple window fan blowing air across a pan of water and into a room are types of evaporative cooling systems.
v Gas Chiller Air Conditioning Systems: It uses heat to cause the refrigerant gas to change states rather than compression and expansion by a compressor motor.
Types of Air Conditioning Systems
ü Central residential air conditioning system incorporates an indoor air handler unit or AHU which draws building air through return ducts from the living space, cools it by moving the air across an evaporator coil, and sends cooled and dehumidified air back into the living area through supply ducts and registers.
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Ductless air conditioning systems do not make use of an air handler connected to duct work to distribute conditioned air for central cooling and/or heating. These include ductless systems mounted on roofs or in attics and wall-mounted units which typically an indoor fan and evaporator coil to produce cooled and dehumidified air, but which route refrigerant to an outside compressor/condenser unit.
ü Wall convectors are often used for both heating conditions and cooling in commercial installations and high-rise apartment buildings. Wall-mounted heating and cooling convector installations may be designed with one central heater or cooling system which feeds multiple units with chilled or heated water or possibly refrigerant from a single remote heating and cooling heat pump.
ü Rooftop mounted central air conditioning systems may include both the cooling unit (evaporator coil, blower fan, filters) and the compressor/condenser unit in one package. Rooftop mounted central cooling systems may be smaller packaged systems which blow their cool air down directly into the cooled space through an opening in the roof, drawing return air from a nearby location, or the rooftop cooling system may be connected to duct work which in turn blows down into multiple building areas to deliver cool air, drawing return air from one or more centralized returns.
ü The window-mounted air conditioner is a small 8,000 BTUh unit but it was installed in a strategic location at the top of a second floor stair. It is able to cool the entire second floor a home (one large, very well-insulated room) and additional cool air flows down the stairwell to also deliver cool and dehumidified air to the lower floor of the home.
ü Do-It-Yourself Homemade air conditioning systems can produce some systems that seem to cool the building but at high cost and with building damage. This system used a window air conditioner placed in a home's attic.
