How many of us care how an air conditioner works? Most of us do not care, just as long as it does work. If the system fails to keep the house cool, we fiddle with the thermostat controls frantically, while dialing the local AC repair service. Those of us that do care how the air conditioner works will benefit from a little understanding of the parts and processes involved.
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First comes the compressor, which compresses the refrigerant, raising its temperature in the process. Then comes the condenser, where the refrigerant gives up some of its heat in the condenser’s coils. From the condenser the refrigerant, now cooled considerably, passes through an expansion valve. The pressure drops dramatically after the refrigerant passes through the tiny orifice of the expansion valve, and as the pressure drops so does the temperature.
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An overview of how the system works is nice for those of us that care about such things. But if the system lets us down in the heat of summer, we are going to need someone with more than an overview. A professional AC technician is needed, with the tools and the know-how to set the system to rights. A call to your local air conditioning specialist
will bring a highly-trained technician out to service your system and get you cooled off again.