Understand Air Conditioners
1. What are the key components of an air conditioner?
An air conditioner is an equipment designed to condition indoor air to the preferred comfort level. A split type air conditioner comprises one outdoor unit and one indoor unit. Key components such as the compressor, condenser coil and condenser fan are housed in the outdoor unit. Whereas the evaporator coil, indoor fan and PCB controller are contained inside the indoor unit.
2. How does an air conditioner work?
The indoor unit absorbs the excessive heat from the room and the outdoor unit rejects the heat to the atmosphere outside the room. The heat is transferred from the indoor unit to the outdoor unit via a medium called the refrigerant. The compressor serves as a pump to the system. It keeps the refrigerant circulated in the system by drawing the refrigerant from the indoor unit and discharging it to the outdoor condenser coil.
3. What are the basic functions of an air conditioner?
The basic functions of an air conditioner include cooling, filtering and dehumidifying the air. In cold climate countries, an air conditioner provides heating as well.
4. How many different types of air conditioners are there?
Currently, there are three major types of air-conditioner
A Window Unit:
This is a self-contained packaged air-conditioner where all the components are housed within the unit. It is installed through an opening in the wall and no inter-piping connections are required.
A Split Unit:
This unit comprises of two parts – the outdoor Condensing Unit (CDU) and the indoor Fan Coil Unit (FCU). The CDU consists of a compressor and a heat rejecting condenser coil while the FCU works as a cooling coil. Interconnecting piping between CDU and FCU is required to run this system.
Centralized Multi System:
The centralized multi system requires only one outdoor unit. The outdoor unit will simultaneously cool multiple units of indoor units. Generally, the outdoor unit is either an inverter driven direct expansion system (i.VRS, IES) or liquid chilled water system (Aquasnap).
4. How do you measure the capacity of an air conditioner?
Although horse power is commonly used to indicate the capacity of an air conditioner, the scientific measure is BTU/HR (British Thermal Unit per hour). One BTU/HR is the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit. The conversion from horse power to BTU/HR is as follows:
| Cooling Capacity |
| Horse Power |
BTU/HR |
| 1 |
9,000 |
| 1.5 |
12,000 |
| 2 |
18,000 |
| 2.5 |
24,000 |
5. Energy Efficiency Rating?
Energy Efficiency Rating (EER) is used to measure the efficiency of an air conditioner. This is a ratio of the cooling output (in BTU) to the power consumption (in watt hours), meaning that, the higher the rating, the higher the efficiency of a unit.