In whole-house home-comfort systems, many HVAC components work together to provide both heating and cooling. Maintenance and repairs, as a result, often will correct or prevent problems that may arise in both heating and cooling.
Here's how HVAC components work apart and work together.
The Heating Process
Whether you use a combustion furnace or heat pump for home heating, a fan draws household air into the heating equipment. In a furnace, gas or oil is ignited to heat the air inside the combustion chamber. In a heat pump, refrigerant flowing through a condensing coil (in the house) is forced to transition from gas to liquid. When this happens, heat energy leaves the refrigerant and warms the nearby air. The cooled, liquefied refrigerant is then pumped to an outside unit containing the evaporator coil. Here, the process is reversed, and heat energy is absorbed from the outside air as the liquid refrigerant changes back to gas.
The Cooling Process
Like with heating, a fan sucks household air into the A/C or heat pump. The air-conditioning process is similar to how a heat pump provides heat during cold weather, except the process works in reverse. The evaporator coil is inside, and the condensing coil outside. Instead of releasing heat energy into household air, heat energy (and moisture) is absorbed by refrigerant flowing through the evaporator coil. This results in home cooling and dehumidification.
Common HVAC Components
In most forced-air central HVAC systems in areas where furnaces are used, the furnace blower serves as the interior fan for the A/C. So if there's a problem with the blower or its motor, that's a problem that will affect heating as well as cooling. The air circulation and distribution system uses shared HVAC components as well; this includes the air ducts, vents and registers. With help from the fan, they deliver conditioned air to rooms, then draw air back to the equipment to be conditioned again.
For more information on how the central HVAC system in your eastern North Carolina home works to keep you comfortable, please contact us at Hartman Brothers Heating & Air Conditioning.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in New Haven, Indiana and surrounding Fort Wayne area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about HVAC components and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Guide or call us at 260-376-2961.
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