What is Central Air Conditioning?

The most common way to cool a home is with a central air conditioning system. The system includes an external condenser unit that sits outside your home and expels heat as well as an evaporator coil, which generally sits above your furnace and cools the air within your home. Finally, your furnace or air handle works with your AC using the fan to blow the chilled air through your home’s ductwork. As a central air conditioner is integrated with your furnace system, it can take advantage of the furnace filter and any additional air purifying equipment you have added. This helps to clean the air throughout your home.

How Does Central Air Conditioning Work?

A central air conditioner works by using your furnace or air handler fan to draw warm air in through your home’s ductwork. As the air is blown across the evaporator coil, which generally sits above your furnace, heat is removed from the air, cooling it down. The removed heat is absorbed into refrigerant running through the coil. This refrigerant is then pumped to the condenser, which is the part of your air conditioner that is outside of your home. The condenser expels this heat into the outside air, cooling the refrigerant, which is then sent back inside the home, to start the process over again. Central AC Explained In 8 Steps As the temperature in your house rises beyond what you set on your thermostat, a signal is automatically sent from your thermostat to the circuit board in your furnace This tells the system that cold air is needed and turns on both the blower motor inside your house and the condenser, which sits outside your home.

Warm air is then drawn into your ductwork and cooled as it passes over the evaporator coil above your furnace This cooled air is then returned to the home through the return air vents Meanwhile refrigerant in your air conditioner absorbs the heat from the air as it flows through the evaporator coil This heated refrigerant is then pumped to the condenser or outside portion of your air conditioner. The condenser blows outside air across a different set of coils, which removes the heat from your home that was absorbed by the refrigerant before the refrigerant is sent back into the home. This process continues until the desired set temperature is met.

What are the benefits of Central Air Conditioning?

Central air conditioners provide cooling to all rooms in the home, not just to select rooms. They also tend to be a more cost-effective solution to ductless AC.