You may be surprised by how little you know about air conditioners. For a start, the full term is HVAC which stands for ‘Heat Ventilation and Air Conditioning.’
In this article, we’ll go through some of the more common misconceptions people have about HVAC systems. Leave a comment below if you thought any of these myths yourself!
Air Conditioners are Like Giant Fans
An air conditioner does use fans, but the basis of how it works is nothing like a fan. The purpose of a fan is to cool the air directly in front of it by using the energy of movement to convert hot air into cooler air, essentially pushing the hot air away, leaving cool air in its path.
An air conditioner does not create cool air, however. Instead of pushing air around, an air conditioner will conduct hot air into itself from inside your house and deposit the hot air outside of your house. The result of this process is that the air remaining inside your house is cooler than the air that used to be there, causing the room to feel cooler.
Air Conditioners Cool the Room While Heaters Warm Up the Room
There is some merit to this thought, but it isn’t completely correct. A portable heater does use energy to heat up the air around it, and an air conditioner does cool a room. However, an air conditioner is not limited to cold temperatures. Many air conditioners have a heating feature as well.
As I mentioned earlier, an air conditioner conducts hot air out of a room and deposits it outside. An air conditioner with both features also has the ability to take hot air from outside and deposit that hot air inside.
Within an air conditioner is a device called a heat pump. The heat pump can take hot air from either inside or outside and deposit it in the alternate location. The airflow from your ac unit depends on this heat pump.
The Home System that Heats and Cools Your House is Called an Air Conditioner
Now, if you’ve been paying attention, you already know the answer to this one. As I mentioned earlier, the air conditioner is only part of the full system. Your HVAC also includes your furnace and the ventilation system of pipes that connect everything together.
The furnace contains other parts such as the evaporator coil and refrigerant, both of which have a part to plan in conducting heat without burning out the system.
These are just a few of the myths about air conditioners. Leave a comment if you knew all of these already!
