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The Deans of Green
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Air Conditioning Basics
comments (1) February 26th, 2010 in Blogs
Daniel Morrison, Executive editor, Fine Homebuilding & Green Building Advisor
Residential air conditioning units are split systems. There's an outdoor unit connected to a copper coil in the air handler located indoors. The indoor coil removes heat from the house and releases it to the outdoor section. The units are connected with copper tubing carrying refrigerant.
The senior editor at Green Building Advisor, Martin Holladay, lives "so close to the Canadien border, the radio stations are in French..." so what does he know about air conditioning? Plenty. Martin has been reporting on it and other energy-related topics for over a decade.
Martin has put together a handy little article in Q&A format that might help take our minds off the snow that keeps falling outside. Some of the questions that he answers:
What’s a 'ton' of cooling?
Answer: In the old days, people used to buy ice to keep cool. A “ton” of cooling capacity is based on the amount of heat absorbed by one ton of ice melting over 24 hours. One ton of cooling capacity is equal to 12,000 Btu/h.
What’s a SEER rating?
Answer: SEER stands for Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio. An air conditioner’s SEER rating is its total cooling output in BTU during a “normal” annual cooling season divided by the unit’s total energy input in watt-hours.
What is latent cooling?
Answer: An air conditioners provides both sensible cooling — that is, it lowers the temperature of the air flowing through the air handler — and latent cooling — that is, it dehumidifies the air flowing through the air handler.
Read the full article at his 'Musings of an Energy Nerd' blog.
posted in: Blogs, hvac, air conditioning
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Comments (1)
http://rsmechanicalservices.com
Posted: 6:36 am on November 23rd
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