About Air Conditioners

Victor Thomas asked:

An air conditioner is ideal to beat the heat. Nothing comforts than the cool breeze from its vent on a hot humid summer afternoon. With this appliance around, there is no need to let the warm weather outside affect your comfort indoors. Air conditioners are becoming more and more efficient, user friendly and energy saving. Its working is simple. Warm air passes through the cold coils in an A/C and moisture from the warm air is removed. This reduces humidity and makes the place cool. The moisture that is removed condenses on the coils and is drained out of the unit.

There are different types of air conditioners – Window, through the wall, portable, packaged terminal and mini-split or ductless. The window and through the wall types work in a similar manner except the way they fit in a room. While the window A/C is installed in your room window, the ‘through the wall’ one is fit through a hole in the wall. It is a good choice if you want to keep your window as such. Compared to these two, the portable type offers more flexibility. It has wheels and so the unit can be moved around from place to place. Hot air ventilates through a hose and condensation collected separately. The ductless type has a compressor that is kept outside the room and the air handler unit is kept inside the room. Packaged terminal air conditioners encase heating and cooling units and are installed through the wall. Central air conditioning units not only cool but dehumidify and filter air. This unit works from a mid point in the house and distributes conditioned air throughout the space (home or office).

The Btu (British thermal unit) rating of an air conditioner is critical for efficient usage. This measures the amount of heat that the A/C can remove from the room and as one would expect, better Btu means increased size, weight and price. Another important factor that influences the capacity of an A/C is the energy efficiency ratio (EER). A higher EER rating means an efficient and expensive unit. Either a programmable or manual thermostat regulates the temperature of air expelled out of the A/C. Filters clean the air and those that can be replaced or easily cleaned should be preferred. Units that have a fan with speed varying options are more effective.

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