Air Conditioner
Call us today and make sure your air conditioner is ready for summer.
Single Stage and 2 Stage Condensing Units
The Evaporator Coil
In order to avoid getting into a real deep discussion of physics and chemistry, I'll give you the layman's description of an evaporator coil.
The evaporator coil's basic design is something like a radiator on a car. There are two flat radiators leaning against each other in an A shape. It is referred to as an A coil. It has tubes that are surrounded by aluminum fins. The evaporator coil sits inside a sheet metal box (coil enclosure) and the whole package is usually installed on the supply (or output) side of your furnace. Most of the time it's inside the box that sits on top of your furnace.
The evaporator coil is connected to the outdoor condensing unit by two copper refrigerant lines. One of these copper lines delivers refrigerant to the coil and one of them takes it back to the condensing unit. In our hot, Minnesota summers, that refrigerant goes through a number of transformations and makes the evaporator coil very cold. When the blower moves air across the coil, cool air is distributed through your duct system.
The cold evaporator coil creates quite a bit of condensation because it has warm air blowing across it. If that condensation is not removed, you will have water everywhere. The coil itself has a drain pan that is usually connected to a hose that leads to a floor drain in the basement.
There are usually no moving parts on a coil unless it has an expansion valve. That valve is used to control the amount of refrigerant that passes through the coil.
The Condensing Unit
The condensing unit is the big ugly box that sits out in your yard and makes all that noise. The newer models are very quiet and not so bad looking.
Inside the condensing unit you'll find the compressor. The compressor is the heart of your system. Its only job is to pump the refrigerant through the refrigerant lines, through your evaporator coil, and then back to the compressor. The rest of your condensing unit is designed to transform the refrigerant from a gas into a liquid.
During the winter, the condensing unit does nothing. It just sits there and waits for summer.
If the furnace, evaporator coil, condensing unit and duct sizes are not in designed to match - one or all of these pieces will suffer greatly.
Total Comfort offers installation, repair and maintenance on air conditioning units. Call us today and make sure your air conditioner is ready for summer. We have been serving clients in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area for over 50 years.