Your home’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning make up the components for what HVAC stands for. In order to receive the best HVAC service you need know a little about the system that keeps your home comfortable Here’s a closer look at each component.
Heating
The most common type of home heating system is a forced-air gas furnace because of its ease of installation, versatility and economical operation. The fuel warms a heat exchanger and as air passes over it, it heats your home. Radiant heating systems use electrical coils or a combustion fuel to heat water that circulates through tubing in the floor, baseboards or ceilings. Geothermal systems use the renewable heat trapped underground to supply indoor heat.
Ventilation
Since forced-air systems are so prevalent, the V in HVAC stands for ventilation. Most systems use ductwork to deliver the conditioned air, and with the exception of ductless mini-splits, nearly all cooling systems require ductwork.
Both ducted and ductless systems make use of air filters that trap airborne particulates before they enter the blower compartment or air handler. Besides protecting the equipment, these filters improve indoor air quality by trapping the larger components of household dust.
Over the years, improvements have been made in home ventilation, prompted largely by airtight home construction methods adopted to increase energy efficiency. Balanced ventilation systems exhaust stale indoor air and pull in fresh air simultaneously without unduly increasing conditioning costs. They use heat exchanger technology to capture the energy in the outgoing air and put it into the incoming air.
Air Conditioning
All air conditioners and heat pumps use refrigerant as the mechanism for cooling, just like refrigerators do. Air conditioners use two separate coils. The refrigerant in the evaporator coil collects the heat, and the condenser coil outdoors dispels it. A heat pump has a reversing valve that changes the refrigerant flow from summer to winter to bring heat indoors.
To learn more about what HVAC stands for and more innovative systems, contact Ace Hardware Home Services. We’ve been providing trusted HVAC services for Dayton homeowners for three decades.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Dayton, Ohio about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).
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