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How Air Conditioners Work

The first modern air conditioning system was developed in 1902 by a young
electrical engineer named Willis Haviland Carrier. It was designed to solve a
humidity problem at the Sackett- Wilhelms Lithographing and Publishing Company
in Brooklyn, N.Y. Paper stock at the plant would sometimes absorb moisture from the
warm summer air, making it difficult to apply the layered inking techniques of the
time. Carrier treated the air inside the building by blowing it across chilled pipes.
The air cooled as it passed across the cold pipes, and since cool air can't carry as
much moisture as warm air, the process reduced the humidity in the plant and
stabilized the moisture content of the paper. Reducing the humidity also had the
side benefit of lowering the air temperature -- and a new technology was born?
Carrier realized he'd developed something with far-reaching potential, and it wasn't
long before air-conditioning systems started popping up in theaters and stores,
making the long, hot summer months much more comfortable
The actual process air conditioners use to reduce the ambient air temperature in a
room is based on a very simple scientific principle. The rest is achieved with the
application of a few clever mechanical techniques. Actually, an air conditioner is
very similar to another appliance in your home -- the refrigerator. Air conditioners
don't have the exterior housing a refrigerator relies on to insulate its cold box.
Instead, the walls in your home keep cold air in and hot air out.
Air-conditioning Basics
Air conditioners use refrigeration to chill indoor air, taking advantage of a
remarkable physical law: When a liquid converts to a gas (in a process called phase
conversion), it absorbs heat. Air conditioners exploit this feature of phase
conversion by forcing special chemical compounds to evaporate and condense over
and over again in a closed system of coils.
The compounds involved are refrigerants that have properties enabling them to
change at relatively low temperatures. Air conditioners also contain fans that move
warm interior air over these cold, refrigerant-filled coils. In fact, central air

conditioners have a whole system of ducts designed to funnel air to and from these
serpentine, air-chilling coils.
When hot air flows over the cold, low-pressure evaporator coils, the refrigerant
inside absorbs heat as it changes from a liquid to a gaseous state. To keep cooling
efficiently, the air conditioner has to convert the refrigerant gas back to a liquid
again. To do that, a compressor puts the gas under high pressure, a process that
creates unwanted heat. All the extra heat created by compressing the gas is then
evacuated to the outdoors with the help of a second set of coils called condenser
coils, and a second fan. As the gas cools, it changes back to a liquid, and the
process starts all over again. Think of it as an endless, elegant cycle: liquid
refrigerant, phase conversion to a gas/ heat absorption, compression and phase
transition back to a liquid again.
It's easy to see that there are two distinct things going on in an air conditioner.
Refrigerant is chilling the indoor air, and the resulting gas is being continually
compressed and cooled for conversion back to a liquid again. On the next page,
we'll look at how the different parts of an air conditioner work to make all that
possible.

The Parts of an Air Conditioner


Let's get some housekeeping topics out of the way before we tackle the unique
components that make up a standard air conditioner. The biggest job an air
conditioner has to do is to cool the indoor air. That's not all it does, though. Air
conditioners monitor and regulate the air temperature via a thermostat. They also
have an on board filter that removes airborne particulates from the circulating air.
Air conditioners function as dehumidifiers. Because temperature is a key component

of relative humidity, reducing the temperature of a volume of humid air causes it to


release a portion of its moisture. That's why there are drains and moisture-collecting
pans near or attached to air conditioners, and why air conditioners discharge water
when they operate on humid days.
Still, the major parts of an air conditioner manage refrigerant and move air in two
directions: indoors and outside:

Evaporator - Receives the liquid refrigerant

Condenser - Facilitates heat transfer

Expansion valve - regulates refrigerant flow into the evaporator

Compressor - A pump that pressurizes refrigerant

The cold side of an air conditioner contains the evaporator and a fan that blows air
over the chilled coils and into the room. The hot side contains the compressor,
condenser and another fan to vent hot air coming off the compressed refrigerant to
the outdoors. In between the two sets of coils, there's an.
expansion valve. It regulates the amount of compressed liquid refrigerant moving
into the evaporator. Once in the evaporator, the refrigerant experiences a pressure
drop, expands and changes back into a gas.
The compressor is actually a large electric pump that pressurizes the refrigerant
gas as part of the process of turning it back into a liquid. There are some additional
sensors, timers and valves, but the evaporator, compressor, condenser and
expansion valve are the main components of an air conditioner.
Although this is a conventional setup for an air conditioner, there are a couple of
variations you should know about. Window air conditioners have all these
components mounted into a relatively small metal box that installs into a window
opening. The hot air vents from the back of the unit, while the condenser coils and a
fan cool and re-circulate indoor air. Bigger air conditioners work a little differently:
Central air conditioners share a control thermostat with a home's heating system,
and the compressor and condenser, the hot side of the unit, isn't even in the house.
It's in a separate all-weather housing outdoors. In very large buildings, like hotels
and hospitals, the exterior condensing unit is often mounted somewhere on the roof.

Window and Split-system AC Units


A window air conditioner unit implements a complete air conditioner in a small
space. The units are made small enough to fit into a standard window frame. You
close the window down on the unit, plug it in and turn it on to get cool air. If you
take the cover off of an unplugged window unit, you'll find that it contains:

A compressor

An expansion valve

A hot coil (on the outside)

A chilled coil (on the inside)

Two fans

A control unit

The fans blow air over the coils to improve their ability to dissipate heat (to the
outside air) and cold (to the room being cooled).
When you get into larger air-conditioning applications, its time to start looking at
split-system units. A split-system air conditioner splits the hot side from the cold
side of the system, as in the diagram below.

The cold side, consisting of the expansion valve and the cold coil, is generally
placed into a furnace or some other air handler. The air handler blows air through
the coil and routes the air throughout the building using a series of ducts. The hot
side, known as the condensing unit, lives outside the building.
The unit consists of a long, spiral coil shaped like a cylinder. Inside the coil is a fan,
to blow air through the coil, along with a weather-resistant compressor and some
control logic. This approach has evolved over the years because it's low-cost, and
also because it normally results in reduced noise inside the house (at the expense of
increased noise outside the house). Other than the fact that the hot and cold sides
are split apart and the capacity is higher (making the coils and compressor larger),
there's no difference between a split-system and a window air conditioner.
In warehouses, large business offices, malls, big department stores and other
sizeable buildings, the condensing unit normally lives on the roof and can be quite
massive. Alternatively, there may be many smaller units on the roof, each attached
inside to a small air handler that cools a specific zone in the building.
In larger buildings and particularly in multi-story buildings, the split-system
approach begins to run into problems. Either running the pipe between the
condenser and the air handler exceeds distance limitations (runs that are too long
start to cause lubrication difficulties in the compressor), or the amount of duct work
and the length of ducts becomes unmanageable. At this point, it's time to think
about a chilled-water system.

Chilled-water and Cooling-tower AC Units

Although standard air conditioners are very popular, they can use a lot of energy
and generate quite a bit of heat. For large installations like office buildings, air
handling and conditioning is sometimes managed a little differently.
Some systems use water as part of the cooling process. The two most well-known
are chilled water systems and cooling tower air conditioners.

Chilled water systems - In a chilled-water system, the entire air conditioner


is installed on the roof or behind the building. It cools water to between 40
and 45 degrees Fahrenheit (4.4 and 7.2 degrees Celsius). The chilled water is
then piped throughout the building and connected to air handlers. This can
be a versatile system where the water pipes work like the evaporator coils in
a standard air conditioner. If it's well-insulated, there's no practical distance
limitation to the length of a chilled-water pipe.

Cooling tower technology - In all of the air conditioning systems we've


described so far, air is used to dissipate heat from the compressor coils. In
some large systems, a cooling tower is used instead. The tower creates a
stream of cold water that runs through a heat exchanger, cooling the hot
condenser coils. The tower blows air through a stream of water causing some
of it to evaporate, and the evaporation cools the water stream. One of the
disadvantages of this type of system is that water has to be added regularly
to make up for liquid lost through evaporation. The actual amount of cooling
that an air conditioning system gets from a cooling tower depends on the
relative humidity of the air and the barometric pressure.

Because of rising electrical costs and environmental concerns, some other air
cooling methods are being explored, too. One is off-peak or ice-cooling technology.
An off-peak cooling system uses ice frozen during the evening hours to chill interior
air during the hottest part of the day. Although the system does use energy, the
largest energy drain is when community demand for power is at its lowest. Energy is
less expensive during off-peak hours, and the lowered consumption during peak
times eases the demand on the power grid.
Another option is geo-thermal heating. It varies, but at around 6 feet (1.8 meters)
underground, the earth's temperature ranges from 45 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit (7.2
to 23.8 degrees Celsius). The basic idea behind
Geo-thermal cooling is to use this constant temperature as a heat or cold source
instead of using electricity to generate heat or cold. The most common type of geothermal unit for the home is a closed-loop system. Polyethylene pipes filled with a
liquid mixture are buried underground. During the winter, the fluid collects heat
from the earth and carries it through the system and into the building. During the
summer, the system reverses itself to cool the building by pulling heat through the
pipes to deposit it underground.

For real energy efficiency, solar powered air conditioners are also making their
debut. There may still be some kinks to work out, but around 5 percent of all
electricity consumed in the U.S. is used to power air conditioning of one type or
another, so there's a big market for energy-friendly air conditioning options.
BTU and EER
Most air conditioners have their capacity rated in British thermal units (Btu). A Btu is
the amount of heat necessary to raise the temperature of 1 pound (0.45 kilograms)
of water one degree Fahrenheit (0.56 degrees Celsius). One Btu equals 1,055 joules.
In heating and cooling terms, one ton equals 12,000 Btu.
A typical window air conditioner might be rated at 10,000 Btu. For comparison, a
typical 2,000-square-foot (185.8 square meters) house might have a 5-ton (60,000Btu) air conditioning system, implying that you might need perhaps 30 Btu per
square foot. These are rough estimates. To size an air conditioner accurately for
your specific application, you should contact an HVAC contractor.
The energy efficiency rating (EER) of an air conditioner is its Btu rating over
its wattage. As an example, if a 10,000-Btu air conditioner consumes 1,200 watts,
its EER is 8.3 (10,000 Btu/1,200 watts). Obviously, you would like the EER to be as
high as possible, but normally a higher EER is accompanied by a higher price.
Let's say you have a choice between two 10,000-Btu units. One has an EER of 8.3
and consumes 1,200 watts, and the other has an EER of 10 and consumes 1,000
watts. Let's also say that the price difference is $100. To determine the payback
period on the more expensive unit, you need to know approximately how many
hours per year you will be operating the air conditioner and how much a kilowatthour (kWh) costs in your area.
Assuming you plan to use the air conditioner six hours a day for four months of the
year, at a cost of $0.10/kWh. The difference in energy consumption between the
two units is 200 watts. This means that every five hours the less expensive unit will
consume one additional kWh (or $0.10) more than the more expensive unit.
Let's do the math: With roughly 30 days in a month, you're operating the air
conditioner:
4 months x 30 days per month x 6 hours per day = 720 hours
[(720 hours x 200 watts) / (1000 watts/kilowatt)] x $0.10/kilowatt hours = $14.40
The more expensive air conditioning unit costs $100 more to purchase but less
money to operate. In our example, it'll take seven years for the higher priced unit to
break even.
Energy Efficient Cooling Systems

Because of the rising costs of electricity and a growing trend to "go green," more
people are turning to alternative cooling methods to spare their pocketbooks and
the environment. Big businesses are even jumping on board in an effort to improve
their public image and lower their overhead.
Ice cooling systems are one way that businesses are combating high electricity
costs during the summer. Ice cooling is as simple as it sounds. Large tanks of water
freeze into ice at night, when energy demands are lower. The next day, a system
much like a conventional air conditioner pumps the cool air from the ice into the
building. Ice cooling saves money, cuts pollution, eases the strain on the power grid
and can be used alongside traditional systems. The downside of ice cooling is that
the systems are expensive to install and require a lot of space. Even with the high
startup costs, more than 3,000 systems are in use worldwide]. You can read more
about ice cooling in Are Ice Blocks Better than Air Conditioning?
An ice cooling system is a great way to save money and conserve energy, but its
price tag and space requirements limit it to large buildings. One way that
homeowners can save on energy costs is by installing geo-thermal heating and
cooling systems, also known as ground source heat pumps (GSHP). The
Environmental Protection Agency recently named geo-thermal units "the most
energy-efficient and environmentally sensitive of all space conditioning systems".
Although it varies, at six feet underground the Earth's temperatures range from 45
to 75 degrees Fahrenheit. The basic principle behind geo-thermal cooling is to use
this constant temperature as a heat source instead of generating heat with
electricity.
The most common type of geo-thermal unit for homes is the closed-loop system.
Polyethylene pipes are buried under the ground, either vertically like a well or
horizontally in three- to six-foot trenches. They can also be buried under ponds.
Water or an anti-freeze/water mixture is pumped through the pipes. During the
winter, the fluid collects heat from the earth and carries it through the system and
into the building. During the summer, the system reverses itself to cool the building
by pulling heat from the building, carrying it through the system and placing it in
the ground [source: Geo Heating].
Homeowners can save 30 to 50 percent on their cooling bills by replacing their
traditional HVAC systems with ground source heat pumps. The initial costs can be
up to 30 percent more, but that money can be recouped in three to five years, and
most states offer financial purchase incentives. Another benefit is that the system
lasts longer than traditional units because it's protected from the elements and
immune to theft.
Are ice blocks better than air conditioning?

Air conditioning with ice blocks is taking root among some of the world's
most powerful companies. See more pictures of air conditioners.
HEATING & COOLING
A novel method of conditioning is taking root among some of the world's most
powerful corporations, and it uses the simple power of ice. Morgan Stanley and
Credit Suisse now use massive ice blocks instead of traditional air-conditioning
systems in some of their offices. Credit Suisse is considering expanding the system
beyond its 1.9-million-square-foot Manhattan office to its other locations around
the world, but they won't be alone. An estimated 3,000 facilities around the world
use ice-based cooling systems
The system is not only more environmentally friendly but also saves big companies
like Goldman Sachs, which put an ice cooling system in its new flagship office,
millions of dollars in utility bills. The system works by making ice at night, when
lower power usage means energy is cheaper and lower temperatures mean less
power is required to freeze water. The larger the difference between nighttime and
daytime temperatures is, the greater the energy savings. In Credit Suisse's system,
the ice forms overnight, and as it melts during the day, fans blow cold air into the
cooling system and throughout the building. At the end of the day, the 51,200
gallons of water -- spread across three rooms in 64 tanks -- is ready to be frozen
again. The ice-block system can also be combined with traditional air conditioning,
which is the case in Credit Suisse's New York office.
The ice system essentially acts like an ultra-efficient battery, storing energy that's
gathered cheaply at night and releasing it during the day. Ice makes a convenient

and efficient medium for the job. By volume, it has up to triple the energy-holding
capacity of water. The system also has less potential for breakdown compared to
more traditional systems.
The ice cooling system is intriguing and energy efficient, but it's not entirely
original. In the 19th century, a hospital in Florida used ice to cool hospital rooms
and many a home chemist has used ice to cool himself on a hot day. Still, you're
unlikely to find an ice-based cooling system in someone's home. The cooling
equipment requires a lot of space and a significant upfront investment -- Credit
Suisse paid $3 million for theirs -- though the investment presumably pays for itself
over time.
The state of New York, along with other state and municipal governments, is
encouraging companies to make environmentally-friendly infrastructure
investments, in some cases offering tax breaks or grants. The pollution and waste
caused by skyscrapers constitutes a major problem for large systems. Ice-cooling
systems do more than save on electricity bills; by using power at night, they ease
strain on already overtaxed electrical grids -- a process known as "load shifting" -using energy during non-peak hours.

Several companies, such as Ice Energy, now offer products that work with
or in place of traditional air conditioners in order to reduce energy use.

More Alternatives to Air Conditioning


Every year, Americans' heating and cooling systems produce 300 billion pounds of
carbon dioxide. Fortunately, the European Union outlawed the refrigerants used in
some old air conditioners that harm the ozone layer, and they will be illegal in the
United States in 2010. But the booming economies of India and China and the
accompanying rise in living conditions in those countries now means that millions of
people are buying energy-draining, ozone-layer-depleting air-conditioning units. In
other words, air conditioning is only making global warming worse, but what can be
done to make air conditioning units more efficient? Should more environmentally
friendly cooling methods replace all conventional air conditioners? We'll take a look
at some options in this section.
A company called Ice Energy manufactures the Ice Bear, a unit designed to work
alongside a traditional air conditioner. Like the large system used by Credit Suisse,
the Ice Bear is designed to run indoors and at night, when temperatures and energy
costs are lower. Ice Bear creates a block of ice at night that cools the refrigerant
during the day, rather than running the refrigerant through a condenser (at peak
hours) that requires a lot of energy.
Underneath the Jordan Quad Parking Lot at Stanford University, 360 miles of piping
run through a four-million-gallon tank of water. At night, subzero ammonia -- a
common refrigerant -- runs through the pipes, freezing the water into giant blocks of
ice. The system, which is one of the largest of its kind in the United States, sends
cold water from the melting ice throughout Stanford's campus, cooling buildings
from noon to 6 p.m. When the facility was first built in the mid-1970s, it skipped the
ice stage, instead directly cooling water that was piped through campus. A $22
million renovation -- completed in 1999 -- converted it to its present form, which
saves the university a reported $500,000 a year on energy bills.
Evaporative coolers, also known as swamp coolers, are another popular
alternative. These coolers don't use refrigerants. Instead, they use the cooling effect
of water evaporation to lower air temperature. You've probably experienced the
same effect after a game of basketball or a workout session. While you may initially
feel hot from exertion, as sweat evaporates from your body, you'll likely start to feel
chilly. Evaporative coolers utilize the same principle. They're also light on energy
consumption but are often maintenance intensive and require leaving some
windows open.
You may be familiar with a variety of other alternatives to traditional air conditioning
systems. Opening windows to allow a draft in and using fans are both common
cooling methods that aren't energy intensive. Good insulation and situating your
house to take advantage of natural wind currents can lessen or eliminate the need
for a cooling system, particularly if you live in a moderate climate.

If your home or office already has an air-conditioning system, there are still some
things you can do. First, make sure it's a modern unit without any ozoneharming refrigerants. Close all windows when your air conditioner is running, and
look into renewable power sources like roof-mounted solar panels. If you have a
window-mounted air conditioner, seal the area around it and get an energy-efficient
model (if you don't plan to switch to central air). Finally, make sure your home or
office central-air conditioner fits the space. If yours is too big, you'll be constantly
turning it on and off, wasting energy in the process.
Gas (substance)
Gas, in physics and chemistry, any substance that expands and spreads indefinitely
when not confined in a container. A gas thus has no shape of its own, but takes on
the shape of its container. The gaseous state is one of the three basic states, or
forms, in which all matter exists. (The two other states are solid and liquid.) Gases
and liquids are both fluids and have certain properties in common.
A gas can be changed into a liquid or solid by being cooled or compressed, or both;
a solid or liquid can be changed into a gas by the application of heat. A substance
that is in the solid or liquid state at ordinary temperatures is called a vapor when it
is in the gaseous form. Steam is water vapor at a high temperature.
A gas consisting of one kind of chemical element is an elementary gas. At ordinary
temperatures and pressures, there are 12 such gases: argon, chlorine, fluorine,
helium, hydrogen, krypton, neon, nitrogen, oxygen, ozone, radon, and xenon.
A gas consisting of molecules made up of atoms of more than one kind of element is
a compound gas. Ammonia and carbon monoxide are common compound gases.
Molecules or atoms of gases can be changed into ions (electrically charged
molecules or atoms) by being heated. A mixture of positively charged gas ions and
electrons is called a plasma.
Properties of Gases
Gases vary widely in their physical and chemical characteristics. Some, such as
oxygen, have neither color nor odor. Chlorine, on the other hand, is yellowish-green
and has a distinct odor. Some gases burn in the presence of oxygen, others do not.
The six inert (or noble) gasesargon, helium, krypton, neon, radon, and xenon
consist of single atoms that do not ordinarily combine with other elements to form
chemical compounds.
Despite these variations, gases have certain properties in common. These include
the following:
Molecular Arrangement

A gas is made up of molecules or single atoms. (Single gas atoms are regarded as
molecules by chemists and physicists.) Gas molecules are much farther apart than
are molecules of solids or of liquids and move about at higher speeds. According to
Avogadro's Law, a hypothesis first stated by the Italian physicist and chemist
Amedeo Avogadro in 1811, equal volumes of different gases, under the same
conditions of temperature and pressure, contain the same number of molecules.
Avogadro's Law has been verified experimentally. Under standard conditions of
temperature (0 C.) and pressure (760 mm of mercury), the volume occupied by
one grammolecular weight of any gas is 22.4 liters (about 0.79 cubic foot). The
number of molecules contained in this volume has been determined to be about
6.023 X 1023, or 602,300 followed by 18 more zeroes. This figure is called
Avogadro's number.
Diffusion and Pressure
Because of the rapid motion of its molecules, a gas will diffuse, or spread uniformly.
In diffusing, it can mix with another gas or with certain liquids and solids.
When a gas is confined to a container, the moving gas molecules continually strike
the container's inside walls, exerting pressure. The molecules move in such a way
that the pressure is the same at every point on the inside walls of the container.
Increasing the amount of gas without changing the size of the container increases
the pressure. Heating the gas also increases the pressure, because the molecules
move more rapidly as the temperature increases.
Compression and Expansion
Outside pressure applied to a gas decreases the volume of the gas (the space it
occupies). This is because the molecules are pressed closer together. If the
temperature is constant, the volume of the gas decreases in inverse proportion to
the pressure applied. Thus the greater the pressure exerted on the gas, the less the
volume of the gas. This principle is called Boyle's Law. The law does not hold true
for all gases at all temperatures.
A volume of gas can be expanded (1) by increasing its temperature (causing the
molecules to move more rapidly and thus travel further); or (2) by decreasing the
pressure applied to the gas. All gases expand at the same rate under the same
conditions. The relation between temperature and the volume of a gas is given by
Charles' Law.
Liquefaction
A gas can be liquefied by being cooled or compressed or both. Each gas has its own
critical temperaturethe temperature above which it cannot be liquefied, no matter
how great the applied pressure. A few gases, such as ammonia and nitrous oxide,
can be liquefied at room temperatureif enough pressure is applied to the gas.

Some gases, such as helium and hydrogen, require extremely low temperatures for
liquefaction to occur.
Liquid
Liquid, a state of matter with properties midway between those of solids and gases.
Water is the most familiar liquid. Liquid molecules have more cohesion (mutual
attraction) than gas molecules but less than solid molecules. Hence, unlike a gas, a
liquid has a definite volume; but unlike a solid, it has no fixed shape. It is shaped by
its container.
Cohesion accounts for surface tension. The surface molecules of a liquid, drawn to
each other and pulled down by those below, behave like a stretched elastic
membrane. Surface tension, combined with adhesion (the attraction of molecules
for other substances) explains capillarity, the tendency of liquids to rise in narrow
tubes.
Liquids may evaporate, boil, condense, freeze, and form solutions. They are capable
of diffusion and osmosis, and of transferring heat by conduction and convection.
Liquids flow, but they also have viscosity (resistance to flowing). They also possess
buoyant force.
How Refrigerators Work

Can you imagine what life was like before the refrigerator came along.
The next time you indulge in an ice cold drink on a hot day, you have your
refrigerator (and onboard freezer) to thank for the refreshingly chilled beverage. It
wasn't so long ago that you'd have to be very rich or well connected to score a
chilled drink with a few ice cubes floating inside. Today, we take refrigeration for
granted, but once upon a time, fortunes were made shipping large blocks of ice
around the world in insulated holds to sell to the rich.

Before refrigeration, preserving food was a big job. You could salt foods, and in
winter, you could bury food in a snow drift and hope the critters didn't find it. To
stay stocked with the essentials, though, you had to work at it -- or be rolling in
money. Refrigeration is one invention that changed the way we conduct our daily
lives. We can preserve food more easily nowadays, so we have much less to worry
about when it comes to food-borne illnesses. The food supply is more stable, too.
That gallon of milk can last a couple of weeks in the fridge as opposed to a couple of
hours on your countertop. That's huge. It means you don't need to keep a cow in
your backyard if you want a regular supply of milk.
The fundamentals of refrigeration are also at work in another important household
appliance: the air conditioner. It's estimated that around 5 percent of all the
electrical energy used in the U.S. is expended to keep our homes cool. That's pretty
amazing, especially when you consider the fact that the principle behind most
refrigeration is simple. Here it is in one sentence: When a liquid evaporates, it
absorbs heat in the process. If you want to get rid of heat, you need to coax a liquid
to convert to its gaseous state

The Purpose of Refrigeration


The fundamental reason for having a refrigerator is to keep food cold. Cold
temperatures help food stay fresh longer. The basic idea behind refrigeration is to
slow down the activity of bacteria (which all food contains) so that it takes longer for
the bacteria to spoil the food.
For example, bacteria will spoil milk in two or three hours if the milk is left out on
the kitchen counter at room temperature. However, by reducing the temperature of
the milk, it will stay fresh for a week or two -- the cold temperature inside the
refrigerator decreases the activity of the bacteria that much. By freezing the milk
you can stop the bacteria altogether and the milk can last for months (until effects
like freezer burn begin to spoil the milk in non-bacterial ways).
Refrigeration and freezing are two of the most common forms of food preservation
used today. For more information on other ways to preserve food,

Parts of a Refrigerator
If you pour a little rubbing alcohol on your skin, it'll feel cold -- really cold. It isn't
refrigerated, so how does this happen? Well, alcohol evaporates at room
temperature the way water evaporates at a low temperature in an oven. As it
evaporates, it absorbs the heat on the surface of your skin, making your skin cooler.
A special coolant called a refrigerant functions in a refrigerator the way alcohol
works on your skin, except in a refrigerator, the coolant is trapped inside a series of
coils. As it makes a circuit through them, it changes back and forth from a liquid to
a gas.
To pull off this frosty feat, a refrigerator uses five major components:

Compressor

Heat-exchanging pipes (serpentine or coiled set of pipes outside the unit)

Expansion valve

Heat-exchanging pipes (serpentine or coiled set of pipes inside the unit)

Refrigerant (liquid that evaporates inside the refrigerator to create the cold
temperatures)

Understanding Refrigeration
To understand what's happening inside a refrigerator, let's learn a little more about
how refrigerants work. You will need:

An oven-safe glass bowl filled with water

A thermometer that can measure up to at least 450 degrees Fahrenheit


(232.2 degrees Celsius)

Add the thermometer to the water filled bowl and place both in the oven. Set the
oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (204.4 degrees Celsius).
As the oven heats up, the temperature of the water will rise until it hits 212
Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius) and it starts boiling. The water temperature will
stay at 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius) even though it's completely
surrounded by the 400 degrees Fahrenheit environment inside the oven. If you let
all the water boil away, the temperature on the thermometer will shoot up to 400
degrees Fahrenheit (232.2 degrees Celsius).
Let's look at this experiment another way: Imagine the existence of an exotic
creature able to live happily in an oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Let's call him
Max. If Max is hanging out in a 400 degree Fahrenheit oven next to a bowl of water
boiling away at 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius), how is he going to
feel about that water? He's going to think the boiling water is really cold. After all,
the boiling water is 188 degrees colder than the 400 degrees Fahrenheit that he
thinks is comfortable. That's a big temperature difference!
This is exactly what happens when humans deal with liquid nitrogen. We feel
comfortable at 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21.1 degrees Celsius), but liquid nitrogen
boils at -320 degrees Fahrenheit (-195.5 degrees Celsius). If you had a pot of liquid
nitrogen sitting on the kitchen table, its temperature would be boiling away at -320
degrees Fahrenheit (-195.5 degrees Celsius) -- to you, of course, it would feel
incredibly cold (so cold it would burn you!).
Modern refrigerators use a regenerating cycle to reuse the same refrigerant over
and over again. You can get an idea of how this works by remembering Max and his
bowl of water. He could easily create a regenerating cycle by taking the following
steps:
1. The bowl of water in the oven example boils away, remaining at 212 degrees
Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius) but producing lots of 400 degree Fahrenheit
steam. Let's say Max collects this steam in a big bag.
2. Once all the water boils off, Max pressurizes the steam into a steel container,
where the temperature rises to 800 degrees Fahrenheit (426.6 degrees
Celsius) as the pressure increases. Now, Max thinks the steel container feels
really "hot" because it contains 800 degree Fahrenheit (426.6 degrees
Celsius) steam instead of 400 degree Fahrenheit steam.
3. The steel container releases or dissipates its excess heat to the air in the
oven, and it eventually drops to the oven's temperature of 400 degrees
Fahrenheit. In the process, the high-pressure steam in the container
condenses into pressurized water.

4. At this point, Max releases the water from the steel pressurized container into
a pot, and it immediately begins to boil, its temperature dropping to 212
degrees Fahrenheit.
By repeating these four steps, Max can reuse the same water over and over again
to provide refrigeration.
The Refrigeration Cycle
The refrigerator in your kitchen uses a cycle that is similar to the one described in
the previous section. But in your refrigerator, the cycle is continuous. In the
following example, we will assume that the refrigerant being used is pure ammonia,
which boils at -27 degrees F. This is what happens to keep the refrigerator cool:
1. The compressor compresses the ammonia gas. The compressed gas heats
up as it is pressurized (orange).
2. The coils on the back of the refrigerator let the hot ammonia gas dissipate its
heat. The ammonia gas condenses into ammonia liquid (dark blue) at high
pressure.
3. The high-pressure ammonia liquid flows through the expansion valve. You
can think of the expansion valve as a small hole. On one side of the hole is
high-pressure ammonia liquid. On the other side of the hole is a low-pressure
area (because the compressor is sucking gas out of that side).
4. The liquid ammonia immediately boils and vaporizes (light blue), its
temperature dropping to -27 F. This makes the inside of the refrigerator cold.
5. The cold ammonia gas is sucked up by the compressor, and the cycle
repeats.
By the way, if you have ever turned your car off on a hot summer day when you
have had the air conditioner running, you may have heard a hissing noise under the
hood. That noise is the sound of high-pressure liquid refrigerant flowing through the
expansion valve.
Pure ammonia gas is highly toxic to people and would pose a threat if the
refrigerator were to leak, so all home refrigerators don't use pure ammonia. You
may have heard of refrigerants know as CFCs(chlorofluorocarbons), originally
developed by Du Pont in the 1930s as a non-toxic replacement for ammonia. CFC-12
(dichlorodifluoromethane) has about the same boiling point as ammonia. However,
CFC-12 is not toxic to humans, so it is safe to use in your kitchen. Many large
industrial refrigerators still use ammonia.

In the 1970s, it was discovered that the CFCs then in use are harmful to the ozone
layer, so as of the 1990s, all new refrigerators and air conditioners use refrigerants
that are less harmful to the ozone layer.
Gas and Propane Refrigerators
If you own an RV, chances are you have a gas- or propane-powered refrigerator.
These refrigerators are interesting because they have no moving parts and use gas
or propane as their primary energy source. Also, they use heat to produce the cold
inside the refrigerator.
A gas refrigerator uses ammonia as the coolant, and water, ammonia and hydrogen
gas to create a continuous cycle for the ammonia. The refrigerator has five main
parts:

Generator - creates ammonia gas

Separator - separates the ammonia gas from water

Condenser - where hot ammonia gas is cooled and condensed to create


liquid ammonia

Evaporator - where liquid ammonia converts to a gas to create cold


temperatures inside the refrigerator

Absorber - absorbs the ammonia gas in water

It works like this:


1. Heat is applied to the ammonia and water solution in the generator. (The heat
comes from burning gas, propane or kerosene.)
2. As the mixture reaches the boiling point of ammonia, it flows into the
separator.
3. Ammonia gas flows upward into the condenser, dissipates heat and converts
back to a liquid.
4. The liquid ammonia makes its way to the evaporator where it mixes with
hydrogen gas and evaporates, producing cold temperatures inside the
refrigerator's cold box.
5. The ammonia and hydrogen gases flow to the absorber where the water
collected in the separator in step No. 2 mixes with the ammonia and
hydrogen gases.
6. The ammonia forms a solution with the water and releases the hydrogen gas,
which flows back to the evaporator.

7. The ammonia-and-water solution flows toward the generator to repeat the


cycle.

Electric and Solar Coolers


You won't need a bag of ice to keep your potato salad cold if you have a handy cooler that plugs into your
cigarette lighter. It uses a unique process known as the Peltier effect, a thermoelectric effect, to produce
cold temperatures. It's pretty neat, and something we haven't discussed yet.
Named after the French 19th century physicist who discovered it, you can create the Peltier effect
yourself using a battery, two pieces of copper wire, and a piece of bismuth or iron wire. Attach the copper
wires to the two poles of the battery, and then connect the bismuth or iron wire between the two pieces of
copper wire. (The bismuth/iron and copper have to be touching -- it's this connection that causes the
Peltier effect.)
The junction where current flows from copper to bismuth will start to get hot, and the junction where
current flows from bismuth to the copper junction will get cold. The maximum temperature drop is about
40 degrees Fahrenheit (22.2 degrees Celsius) from the ambient temperature at the hot junction.
As you'd expect, in an electric cooler the hot junction is placed outside the unit, and the cold junction is
placed inside. To amplify the effect, coolers contain lots and lots of junctions.
Electric coolers aren't the only unique inventions out there designed to chill your lunch. Solar powered
refrigerators are another option. If you plan to spend time camping (or want to start your own hot dog
stand), you may want chilled beverages but not have the electricity to power a standard refrigerator. By
now, you won't be surprised that a number of energy solutions can provide power to refrigeration
systems. In a solar powered refrigerator, a simple solar panel does the honors. Using the sun's rays to
make something cold? Now that's ingenious
.

Cold Packs
Speaking of refrigeration and coldness, have you ever used one of those "instant
cold packs" that looks like a plastic bag filled with liquid. You hit it, shake it up and it
gets extremely cold. What's going on here?
The liquid inside the cold pack is water. In the water is another plastic bag or tube
containing ammonium-nitrate fertilizer. When you hit the cold pack, it breaks
the tube so that the water mixes with the fertilizer. This mixture creates

an endothermic reaction -- it absorbs heat. The temperature of the solution falls to


about 35 F for 10 to 15 minutes.
How Water Heaters Work

A gas heater looks like an electric unit, except that it doesn't contain the
two heating elements. It has a gas burner at the bottom, with the chimney
running up through the middle of the tank.
The water coming into your home makes a journey through a system of pipes, and
it's usually cold or cool, depending on the time of year. To have water warm enough
to take a hot shower or bath, or use your dishwasher or washing machine, you need
a water heater.
Water heaters are familiar fixtures in most homes. They typically look like big metal
cylinders, tall drums that are often consigned to a laundry room or basement.
Newer styles have some interesting features, like losing the tank completely in favor
of water-on-demand, but the old, reliable water heater design that's most widely
used in the U.S. today is really a pretty simple appliance; it's basically a drum filled
with water and equipped with a heating mechanism on the bottom or inside. Even
though they lack drama and complexity, water heaters are still pretty amazing.
What makes them interesting is that they exploit the heat rising principle to deliver
hot water right to your faucet with a minimum of fuss. Don't let the simple shape
shrouded in its wooly insulating blanket fool you. Water heaters have an ingenious
design on the inside for something that looks so ordinary on the outside.

In the next pages, we'll get into a little hot water and take a closer look at what's
really going on in that big steel can of a water heater in your basement.
Inside a Water Heater
Let's take a quick look at the components that work together in your water heater to
make your morning shower so satisfying:

Tank - The inner shell of a water heater is a heavy metal tank containing a
water protective liner that holds 40 to 60 gallons (151 to 227 liters) of hot
water at around 50 to 100 pounds per square inch (PSI), within the pressure
range of a typical residential water system. The exterior of the tank is
covered in an insulating material like polyurethane foam. Over that, there's a
decorative outer shell and possibly an additional insulating blanket

Dip tube - Water enters the water heater through the dip tube at the top of
the tank and travels to the tank bottom where it's then heated.

Shut-off valve -The shut-off valve stops water flow into the water heater. It's
a separate component from the heater located outside and above the unit.

Heat-out pipe -Suspended toward the top of the tank's interior, the heat-out
pipe allows the hot water to exit the water heater.

Thermostat - This is a thermometer- and temperature-control device. Some


electric water heaters have a separate thermostat for each element.

Heating mechanism - Electric water heaters have heating elements inside


the tank to heat the water. Gas water heaters use a burner and chimney
system instead.

Drain valve - Located near the bottom of the exterior housing, the drain
valve makes it easy to empty the tank to replace the elements, remove
sediment or move the tank to another location.

Pressure relief valve - This safety device keeps the pressure inside the
water heater within safe limits.

Sacrificial anode rod - Made of magnesium or aluminum with a steel core,


the sacrificial anode rod is suspended in the water heater tank to help retard
corrosion.

Now, let's see how all these parts work together to provide you with hot water.
Heating the Water
Let's take a close-up look at what's going on inside a water heater's tank to see how
simply and elegantly it does its job.

A water heater's thermostat controls the temperature of the water inside the tank.
Normally, you can set the temperature anywhere between 120 and 180 degrees
Fahrenheit (49 to 82 degrees Celsius). The water temperature setting recommended
by most manufacturers is between 120 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit (49 to 60 degrees
Celsius). This is hot enough to be efficient for household use, but not so hot that it
can pose a scalding risk. If there are children living in your home, it's wise to stay
closer to the lower end of the range.
Setting your water heater to a lower temperature saves energy, too, and if you
remember to dial back the heat when you go on vacation, you'll experience even
more energy savings. Usually, the thermostat is located underneath a protective
cover plate and has a knob or dial you can turn to set the temperature.
The dip tube feeds cold water from your home's water lines to the bottom of the
tank's interior, where the water starts to warm up. The heating mechanism, either
a burner or an element, stays on until the water reaches temperature. As the water
heats, it rises to the top of the tank. The heat-out pipe is located near the top of
the tank. Water exiting the water heater at the top is always the hottest in the tank
at any given moment because it's the nature of hot water to rise above denser, cold
water.
The secret to a water heater's design for separating cold, incoming water from hot,
outgoing water is that it relies on the principle that heat rises to do the hard part.
The position of the heat-out pipe at the top of the tank does the rest.
How Icemakers Work

A standard home icemaker that you install in your freezer


Only a century ago, ice was hard to come by in most parts of the world. In
hotter climates, you had to buy your ice from a delivery service, which imported

hefty blocks from a colder climate or from an industrial refrigeration plant. The price
of ice was relatively steep, but if you wanted to keep your food cold, you didn't have
much choice. In the hottest parts of the world, ice was a rare luxury. In an equatorial
country, you might live your whole life and never even see a piece of ice.
This all changed in the early 20th century. Compact, affordable refrigerators brought
the means of food preservation and ice production into the home and corner store.
In the 1960s, new automatic icemaker machines made life even easier. These days,
most Americans take ice completely for granted, even during the hottest days of
summer.
In this article, we'll find out what's inside a typical home icemaker, as well as the
larger commercial icemakers you might find at a hotel or grocery store. As we'll see,
the basic process of making ice is very simple -- you just freeze water -- but spitting
out perfectly shaped ice cubes is a fairly elaborate process.
The home icemaker's predecessor was the plastic ice tray. It's fairly obvious how
this device works: You pour water into a mold, leave it in the freezer until it turns to
a solid and then extract the ice cubes. An icemaker does exactly the same thing,
but the process of pouring water and extracting cubes is fully automated. A home
icemaker is an ice-cube assembly line.

The home icemaker is a miniature ice-cube assembly line.


Most icemakers use an electric motor, an electrically operated water valve and an
electrical heating unit. To provide power to all these elements, you have to hook the
icemaker up to the electrical circuit powering your refrigerator. You also have to
hook the icemaker up to the plumbing line in your house, to provide fresh water for
the ice cubes. The power line and the water-intake tube both run through a hole in
the back of the freezer.

Making Ice
When everything is hooked up, the icemaker begins its cycle. The cycle is usually
controlled by a simple electrical circuit and a series of switches. In the diagram
below, you can see how the icemaker moves through its cycle.

At the beginning of the cycle, a timed switch in the circuit briefly sends
current to a solenoid water valve. In most designs, the water valve is
actually positioned behind the refrigerator, but it is connected to the central
circuit via electrical wires. When the circuit sends current down these wires,
the charge moves a solenoid (a type of electromagnet), which opens the
valve.

The valve is only open for about seven seconds; it lets in just enough water to
fill the ice mold. The ice mold is a plastic well, with several connected
cavities. Typically, these cavities have a curved, half-circle shape. Each of the
cavity walls has a small notch in it so each ice cube will be attached to the
cube next to it.

Once the mold is filled, the machine waits for the water in the mold to freeze.
The cooling unit in the refrigerator does the actual work of freezing the
water, not the icemaker itself. The icemaker has a built-in thermostat, which
monitors the temperature level of the water in the molds. When the
temperature dips to a particular level -- say, 9 degrees Fahrenheit (-13
degrees Celsius) -- the thermostat closes a switch in the electrical circuit
Closing this switch lets electrical current flow through a heating
coil underneath the icemaker. As the coil heats up, it warms the bottom of
the ice mold, loosening the ice cubes from the mold surface.

The electrical circuit then activates the icemaker's motor. The motor spins
a gear, which rotates another gear attached to a long plastic shaft. The shaft
has a series of ejector blades extending out from it. As the blades revolve,
they scoop the ice cubes up and out of the mold, pushing them to the front of
the icemaker. Since the cubes are connected to one another, they move as a
single unit.

At the front of the icemaker, there are plastic notches in the housing that
match up with the ejector blades. The blades pass through these notches,
and the cubes are pushed out to a collection bin underneath the icemaker.

The revolving shaft has a notched plastic cam at its base. Just before the
cubes are pushed out of the icemaker, the cam catches hold of the shut-off
arm, lifting it up. After the cubes are ejected, the arm falls down again. When
the arm reaches its lowest resting position, it throws a switch in the circuit,
which activates the water valve to begin another cycle. If the arm can't reach
its lowest position, because there are stacked-up ice cubes in the way, the

cycle is interrupted. This keeps the icemaker from filling your entire freezer
with ice; it will only make more cubes when there is room in the collection
bin.
This system is effective for making ice at home, but it doesn't produce enough ice
for commercial purposes, such as restaurants and self-service hotel ice machines. In
the next section, we'll look at a larger, more powerful icemaker design.
Commercial Icemakers
There are any numbers of ways to configure a large, free-standing icemaker -- all
you need is a refrigeration system, a water supply and some way of collecting the
ice that forms.
One of the simplest professional systems uses a large metal ice-cube tray,
positioned vertically. You can see how this system works in the diagram below.
In this system, the metal ice tray is connected to a set of coiled heat-exchanging
pipes like the ones on the back of your refrigerator. If you've read How
Refrigerators Work, then you know how these pipes work. A compressor drives a
stream of refrigerant fluid in a continuous cycle of condensation and expansion.
Basically, the compressor forces refrigerant through a narrow tube (called
the condenser) to condense it, and then releases it into a wider tube (called
the evaporator), where it can expand.
Compressing the refrigerant raises its pressure, which increases its temperature. As
the refrigerant passes through the narrow condenser coils, it loses heat to the
cooler air outside, and it condenses into a liquid. When the compressed fluid
passes through the expansion valve, it evaporates -- it expands to become a gas.
This evaporation process draws in heat energy from the metal pipes and the air
around the refrigerant. This cools the pipes and the attached metal ice tray.
The icemaker has a water pump, which draws water from a collection sump and
pours it over the chilled ice tray. As the water flows over the tray, it gradually
freezes, building up ice cubes in the well of the tray. When you freeze water layer by
layer this way, it forms clear ice. When you freeze it all at once, as in the home
icemaker, you get cloudy ice.
After a set amount of time, the icemaker triggers a solenoid valve connected to
the heat-exchanging coils. Switching this valve changes the path of the refrigerant.
The compressor stops forcing the heated gas from the compressor into the narrow
condenser; instead, it forces the gas into a wide bypass tube. The hot gas is cycled
back to the evaporator without condensing. When you force this hot gas through the
evaporator pipes, the pipes and the ice tray heat up rapidly, which loosens the ice
cubes.

Typically, the individual cube cavities are slanted so the loosened ice will slide out
on their own, into a collection bin below. Some systems have a cylinder
piston that gives the tray a little shove, knocking the cubes loose.
This sort of system is popular in restaurants and hotels because it makes ice cubes
with a standard shape and size. Other businesses, such as grocery stores and
scientific research firms, need smaller ice flakes for packing perishable items. We'll
look at flake icemakers next.
Flake Icemakers
In the last section, we looked at a standard cube icemaker design. Flake icemakers
work on the same basic principle as cube icemakers, but they have an additional
component: the ice crusher. You can see how a typical flake system works in the
diagram below.
Like the cube icemaker design we examined in the last section, this machine uses a
set of heat-exchanging coils and a stream of water to build up a layer of ice. But in
this system, the coils are positioned inside a large metal cylinder. Water passes
through the cylinder, as well as around its outer edges. The passing water gradually
builds up a large column of ice surrounding the cylinder from the inside and outside.
As with a cube icemaker, a solenoid valve releases hot gas into the cooling pipes
after a set length of time. This loosens the ice column so it falls into the ice crusher
below. The ice crusher breaks the ice cylinder into small pieces, which pass on to a
collection bin.
The size of the ice bits depends on the crusher mechanism. Some crushers grind
the ice into fine flakes, while other crushers produce larger, irregularly shaped ice
chunks.
There are many variations on these designs, but the basic idea in all of them is the
same. A refrigeration system builds up a layer of ice, and a harvesting system
ejects the ice into a collection bin. At the most basic level, this is all there is to any
icemaker.

How Freezers Work

Freezers have long been used to preserve food, but how does it work to
keep your food from spoiling?
Nearly every modern American home has a freezer, most likely attached to a
refrigerator. But why do we freeze food? To store for later the food we wouldn't be
able to get to in a couple of days if we put it in the refrigerator. So that huge pot of
beef stew goes into the freezer, alongside that revolutionary 20th century invention:
the frozen dinner.
But the need to store food for later -- or to create ice for keeping drinks cooled -- is
far older than leftovers and TV dinners. It goes back about as far as civilization itself.
Thousands of years ago, ancient Mesopotamians discovered that cold food rotted
more slowly than food left outside [source: Shepherd]. So, they dug big pits into the
ground, insulated them with straw or sand, and then topped them with ice and snow
from the nearest mountains. These pits, or ice caves, were used to preserve the
food for two or three weeks at a time. Mesopotamians understood that warm air
from outside could prevent the snow from cooling the food, so the entrance was
kept small and narrow to prevent air seepage.
This was how food was preserved for centuries until about the late 1600s, when
England and France created their own version with the invention of the ice house
[source: Martin]. Although many were at least partially in the ground, some were
designed as thatched roof pits that could keep food cold or provide chipped ice for
drinks and desserts -- with the help of snow and ice brought in from lakes -- for
about a year. The process was similar to the ice cave, with an insulator such as
sawdust or small branches that was topped with snow and sawdust.
These eventually gave way to the creation of the icebox, a small cabinet that had a
compartment for holding a large block of ice and another compartment for storing
food. These were common until about the 1920s, when electric refrigerators and
freezers began to make their debut.

By then, science and industry had established the idea of mechanical refrigeration,
in which a circulating chemical gas kept things in a compartment cold. That's why
today's mechanically circulated vapor-driven freezers are a little more complicated
(and efficient) than hollowed-out ice caves filled up with mountain snow. Up next,
we'll find out how several scientific discoveries led up to the creation of the modern
freezer we use today.
Development of the Modern Freezer
Bacteria are usually the cause of food decay, but they can't grow as well or at all in
freezing temperatures, which are at 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius) or
lower. So, food spoils more slowly if you lower the liquid inside it -the water molecules -- to freezing temperatures.
As scientists in the early 1800s made related discoveries about the nature of
temperature and the laws of thermodynamics, it was then that the framework for
artificial temperature regulation fell into place.
American inventor Jacob Perkins built upon the vapor absorption ideas set forth by
inventor Oliver Evans in the early 1800s to create a cooling unit that relied
on vapor compression, which we'll take a closer look at on the next page. Perkins
determined that a substance used as a refrigerant would absorb and give off heat
as it went through pressure changes and transformed from liquid to vapor and back.
In other words, Perkins discovered that certain chemicals could lower air
temperatures by absorbing all the heat. He obtained the first known patent for a
refrigerating unit, but his invention never saw commercial success.
In the late 1840s, a doctor from Florida patented a device that pressurized and then
depressurized refrigerant enough to create ice, although it leaked and didn't always
work properly. And n 1860, French inventor Ferdinand Carre improved on vapor
compression technology by using a more stable and effective (but toxic) refrigerant
-- ammonia -- instead of the ether Perkins had used [source: Chapel].
By the 1920s, the technology had been refined enough -- and electricity widely
available enough -- that crude but expensive freezers were commercially available
in the U.S. and Europe, although they were still widely inefficient. Outside air would
seep into the freezer compartment, so they had to be stored in ice houses for better
temperature control.
Freezers have improved considerably since then, with more elaborate machinery,
better chemicals and more efficient ways of keeping the cold air inside. Read the
next page to learn more about how the freezer in your house works.

Modern Freezers
So now you know that vapor compression is the principle behind the freezer. But
how exactly does it work? At the core is a fast-moving stream of vaporized
refrigerant that goes through a cycle inside the freezer.
To get an idea of how it works, picture a river as it winds through the mountains and
countryside en route to the ocean. Once it empties out, then it's taken up by clouds,
turned into rain, and re-enters that river where it flows to the ocean again.
Refrigerant flows and transforms from liquid to gas and back in a similar way.
Today, some of the most commonly used refrigerants are HFCs (hydro
fluorocarbons). Other refrigerants, such as CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and HCFCs
(hydro chlorofluorocarbons) are highly regulated -- and banned from use in many
products -- in the United States since they were contribute to depleting the
atmospheric ozone layer [source: EPA].
The refrigerant begins the cooling process as a vapor under low pressure. The first
freezer component it enters is the compressor (usually found in the lower back of
the freezer). The compressor squeezes the vapor's particles, which heats it up and
converts it into a high-pressure state.
The hot, pressurized refrigerant is pumped by the compressor through a tube into
the next component called a condenser. If you've ever touched the outside of your
freezer and felt warmth, that's the heat coming off the condenser coils, which
usually sit underneath or at the bottom of the freezer, where they can be exposed
to room temperature air and cooled down. As the vapor travels through the

condenser coils, it loses the heat but retains its high pressure. It is also converted
into a moderately warm temperature.
The now-liquid refrigerant's inherent pressure pushes it through into the next
component: the metering tube. This small structure regulates the vapor's pressure
so it can head into the next component.
As the liquid refrigerant heads from the small metering tube into the
larger evaporator, its pressure drops suddenly, causing it to convert back into a
low-pressure vapor. The evaporator also absorbs the heat, which leads to a freezing
cold vapor that keeps the unit's temperature cold enough for freezing your food.
The vapor then goes back to the compressor to begin the process anew.
Types of Freezers
In your home, you probably have a refrigerator/freezer combination unit. Whether
you have a side-by-side fridge/freezer appliance, the kind with the freezer on top, or
one with the freezer on the bottom, the differences are few. Each freezer is a single
unit, so they all use the same machinery described earlier in the pursuit of vapor
compression. About the only difference is energy efficiency. The bottom-mount uses
the least amount of power. Why? If the compressor is on the bottom, doesn't have
to push vapor very far. On the side-by-side or top-freezer styles, the compressor has
to force refrigerant through a tube to reach the freezer compartment.
Another kind of freezer is the standalone, also called a "deep freeze" or "sub-zero,"
although the latter is a trademarked name for a specific brand of freezer. They, too,
operate on the basic principles of vapor-compression.
Have you ever worked in a restaurant and had to retrieve food from a large, walk-in
commercial freezer? Again, these use vapor-compression; the only major benefit for
this kind of unit is that many of them have reinforced aluminum floors which can
hold up to 600 pounds (about 270 kilograms) of weight per square foot -- a very
valuable concept in a high-volume restaurant (but which would be completely
unnecessary for a family of four).
Whatever kind of freezer you use, be sure to keep the temperature low and
consistent. Otherwise, you'll get a buildup of a freezer's worst enemy: frost. On the
next page, we'll take a look at how frost occurs and what you can do to prevent it.
The Frosty Menace: Freezer Frost
The worst thing that can happen to a freezer is frost, which is a thick, cold dusting
of fine ice that covers everything inside the freezer turning it all into one big solid
icy mess. What can cause frost?

Opening it too often and allowing too much warm room temperature air in,
which can shut down the freezer elements that are built to process only cold
air

Blocking air flow by pushing the freezer too close to a wall, which makes the
condenser coils act less efficiently

Having a loose rubber seal around the door, which allows that pesky room
temperature air in

Basically, in each of these situations, warm air mixes with sub-freezing air. The
result is frost. Many newer-model freezers have an automatic frost prevention
feature, which regulates temperatures to keep the inside temperature consistently
where it needs to be. If you don't have that feature, here are some other ways to
prevent frost:

Set your freezer's thermostat to 0 degrees Fahrenheit -- not too much colder
or warmer [source: NCHFP].

Open it only when you need to, so as to not wear down the rubber seal
around the door.

If your freezer has coils on the back, make sure you have at least 3 inches
between the coils and the wall.

If you aren't able to get rid of frost as fast as it accumulates -- say your rubber seal
is shot, an expensive internal part is overworked, or a coil is fried -- it might be time
to get a replacement. Up next, we'll look at what you need to consider when it's
time to purchase a new freezer.
How Home Thermostats Work

A programmable thermostat is but one option for your heating and cooling
needs.
If you have specific heating and cooling needs in order to be comfortable then
you've probably spent a little time looking at and operating your home thermostat.
This handy little device controls the heating and air-conditioningsystems in your
house -- the two pieces of equipment that use the most energy, and the ones that
have the biggest impact on your comfort and quality of life. In these days of rising
energy prices, you might be interested to see how your thermostat works. Believe it
or not, it's surprisingly simple and contains some pretty cool technology.
In this article, we'll take apart a household thermostat and learn how it works. We'll
also learn a little about digital thermostats, talking thermostats, telephone
thermostats and system zoning.
Modern thermostats are almost exclusively digital, but before we get to those, let's
take a trip down memory lane and look at the parts of a non-digital thermostat that
you might still find in older homes and motels. Let's start with the mercury
switch -- a glass vial with a small amount of actual mercury inside.Mercury is a
liquid metal -- it conducts electricity and flows like water. Inside the glass vial are
three wires. One wire goes all the way across the bottom of the vial, so the mercury
is always in contact with it. One wire ends on the left side of the vial, so when the
vial tilts to the left, the mercury contacts it -- making contact between this wire and
the one on the bottom of the vial. The third wire ends on the right side of the vial, so
when the vial tilts to the right, the mercury makes contact between this wire and
the bottom wire.
There are two thermometers in this kind of thermostat. The one in the cover
displays the temperature. The other, in the top layer of the thermostat, controls the

heating and cooling systems. These thermometers are nothing more than coiled
bimetallic strips. And what's that, you ask? We'll find out on the next page.
Thermometers and Switches
A bimetallic strip is a piece of metal made by laminating two different types of
metal together. The metals that make up the strip expand and contract when
they're heated or cooled. Each type of metal has its own particular rate of
expansion, and the two metals that make up the strip are chosen so that the rates
of expansion and contraction are different. When this coiled strip is heated, the
metal on the inside of the coil expands more and the strip tends to unwind.
The center of the coil is connected to the temperature-adjustment lever, and the
mercury switch is mounted to the end of the coil so that when the coil winds or
unwinds, it tips the mercury switch one way or the other.
In non-digital thermostats there are two switches. These switches move small
metal balls that make contact between different traces on the circuit card inside
the thermostat. One of the switches controls themode (heat or cool), while the
other switch controls the circulation fan. On the next page, we'll see how these
parts work together to make the thermostat work.

Thermostat wiring consists of wires that connect the transformer to the


system relays.
Inner Workings
When you move the lever on the thermostat to turn up the heat, this rotates
the thermometer coil and mercury switch, tipping them to the left.

As soon as the switch tips to the left, current flows through the mercury in the
mercury switch. This current energizes a relay that starts the heater and circulation
fan in your home. As the room gradually heats up, the thermometer coil gradually
unwinds until it tips the mercury switch back to the right, breaking the circuit and
turning off the heat.
When the mercury switch tips to the right, a relay starts the air conditioner. As the
room cools, the thermometer coil winds up until the mercury switch tips back to the
left.
Thermostats have another cool device called a heat anticipator. The heat
anticipator shuts off the heater before the air inside the thermostat actually reaches
the set temperature. Sometimes, parts of a house will reach the set temperature
before the part of the house containing the thermostat does. In this case, the
anticipator shuts the heater off a little early to give the heat time to reach the
thermostat.
The loop of wire above is a kind of resistor. When the heater is running, the current
that controls the heater travels from the mercury switch, through the yellow wire to
the resistive loop. It travels around the loop until it gets to the wiper, and from
there it travels through the hub of the anticipator ring and down to the circuit board
on the bottom layer of the thermostat. The farther the wiper is positioned (moving
clockwise) from the yellow wire, the more of the resistive wire the current has to
pass through. Like any resistor, this one generates heat when current passes
through it. The farther around the loop the wiper is placed, the more heat is
generated by the resistor. This heat warms the thermometer coil, causing it to
unwind and tip the mercury switch to the right so that the heater shuts off.
Next, we'll take a more detailed look at the electrical circuits in the thermostat.
Wired
This thermostat is designed for a system with five wires -- the wire terminations are
marked as follows:

RH - This wire comes from the 24VAC transformer on the heating system.

RC - This wire comes from the 24VAC transformer on the air-conditioning


system.

W - This wire comes from the relay that turns on the heating system.

Y - This wire comes from the relay that turns on the cooling system.

G - This wire comes from the relay that turns on the fan.

The two transformers provide the power the thermostat uses to switch on the
various relays. The relays in turn switch on the power to the fan and the air
conditioner or furnace. Let's see how this power flows through the thermostat when
the air conditioner is running.
Power from the air-conditioning transformer comes into the terminal labeled RC. The
ball controlled by the mode switch jumps the current onto a trace that leads to the
terminal in the lower-right corner of the circuit board.
This terminal connects to the top layer of the thermostat through a screw. It
connects to the pink wire, which leads to the bottom wire in the mercury switch. If
the switch is tilted to the right (as it would be if the air conditioning were on), the
current travels through the mercury into the blue wire.
Through a screw, the blue wire (see above) connects to a lug in the lower-left corner
of the circuit card.
From there, it goes through a trace on the circuit card to the other branch of the
mode switch. The ball in the mode switch jumps the current onto a trace that
connects to the terminal marked G, which energizes the fan, and the terminal
marked Y, which energizes the air conditioning.
Digital thermostats use a simple device called a thermistor to measure
temperature. This is a resistor which allows electrical resistance changes with
temperature. The microcontroller in a digital thermostat can measure the resistance
and convert that number to an actual temperature reading.
A digital thermostat can do a few things that a regular mechanical thermostat
cannot. One of the most useful features of a digital thermostat is programmable
settings. In the winter, you can program it to automatically turn up the heat for an
hour or two in the morning while you get ready for work, turn down the heat until
you get home, turn up the heat in the evening and then turn down the heat while
you sleep. This is a great money-saving feature because you can simply turn down
the heat when it isn't needed.
System Zoning
A lot of times, there are rooms in your house that are always warmer or colder than
others are. There can be many explanations for this. For one, heat rises, so rooms
on second or third floors are often too warm. In turn, basement rooms are typically
too cold. Rooms with vaulted ceilings have a difficult time retaining heat, while
rooms that receive long hours of sunlight are often difficult to cool down. These are
just a few reasons, but regardless of why a room's temperature is uncomfortable,
there's only one surefire way to even out your house's temperature: system zoning.
System zoning is pretty simple. It involves multiple thermostats that are wired to a
control panel, which operates dampers within the ductwork of your forced-air

system. The thermostats constantly read the temperature of their specific zone,
then open or close the dampers within the ductwork according to the thermostat's
settings. Not only is system zoning helpful for houses with inconsistent room
temperatures, but it's also great for heating or cooling individual bedrooms based
on the desired temperature setting. If you have a usually empty guest room, just
shut the door and close the damper.
If used properly, system zoning can help you save money on your energy bills.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, system zoning can save homeowners
up to 30 percent on a typical heating and cooling bill. Those savings can add up to
quite a sum -- the Department of Energy also estimates that heating and cooling
account for 40 percent of the average household's utility costs. Because guest
rooms and other seldom-used rooms don't require constant heating or cooling,
system zoning allows you to save money by running temperature-controlled air to
those rooms only when it is necessary.
Many homeowners are hesitant or unwilling to make the transition to programmable
thermostats and system zoning because of the initial cost of installation. This is an
understandable concern for anyone who's not building a new home or replacing an
old HVAC system, but there are other options available. Even though installing a
typical zoned system is not a do-it-yourself project, the Department of Energy's
Inventions and Innovation Program funded the development of a damper system
that can be retrofitted to existing ductwork. The system combines RetroZone's flex
damper air control inserts with an electronic controller and air pumping system.
There are no heavy motors involved, so existing ductwork does not need to be
altered or supported.
The flex dampers, which come in circular and square duct models, fill with air to
constrict or block the airflow within the duct. They're resistant to heat, aging,
moisture, airborne chemicals and ozone, and even if they're punctured, which is
unlikely, most holes will not affect the performance. Flex dampers should be
installed in steel or flexible ducts. The dampers can be serviced easily by gaining
access through a register. Flex dampers also work with most brands of zone-control
panels.
If you're planning to install a retrofitted zone-control system, here's what you'll need
to put on your shopping list:

thermostat for each zone

solenoid pump

solenoid panel

zone control panel

plenum tubing

transformer

fire rated tape

control limit switch

flex dampers

The number of zones your home needs will affect the way you set up the system. In
a two-zone system, with the zones being fairly equal in size, each zone's ductwork
must be capable of handling up to 70 percent of the total CFM (cubic feet per
minute) of air produced by your HVAC system. In a three-zone system, the zones
need to be as close in total area as possible. In this case, each zone's ductwork
should be able to handle up to 50 percent of the total CFM. Installing a four-zone
system requires a bit more work. The ducts need to be enlarged by one inch, and
they require a static pressure relief damper and high- and low-limit protection. To
avoid major damage, be sure not to completely cut off the airflow over the heat
exchanger or coil of your HVAC system.
Talking Thermostats
Talking thermostats may seem like one of those unnecessary futuristic inventions
straight out of an episode of "The Jetsons," but they're actually quite practical for
senior citizens, people who are visually impaired or blind, and other people with
special needs. Talking thermostats announce the time, day, temperature setting and
room temperature, plus they have audio instructions for setup.
Even though talking thermostats are most helpful to people with vision
impairments, they can also be useful to the general population.
It's often difficult to know when there's a problem in your heating and cooling
system, and major problems can cost thousands of dollars to repair. Even minor
problem can lead to far more serious and costly repairs if not diagnosed in a timely
manner. Talking thermostats can end up saving you lots of time, money and stress
because they alert you when you need to have your system serviced. They also let
you know when you need to change the system filter. Promptly replacing the filter
lowers the cost of heating and cooling your home and also helps people
control allergies and asthma.
Some talking thermostats even recognize and respond to voice commands. You
simply say an activation word, such as "thermostat," followed by a command like
"raise" or "lower," and the rest is automated. Talking thermostats are able to do this
because they use DSP, or digital signal processors, to process audio and speech.
First, the DSP filters out real-world analog signals. Then, the microprocessor
changes them into digital signals. After the signals have been converted, they're

sent through application-specific integrated circuits, or ASICS, and the


thermostat reacts in real time.
Because talking thermostats are high-end, cutting-edge accessories to heating and
cooling systems, they come equipped with all of the user-friendly functions that
other quality thermostats boast. A built-in time-delay function keeps your system
from immediately starting or stopping if it's accidentally adjusted. Stopping and
starting HVAC systems puts a lot of wear and tear on the compressor, which is the
most expensive part of the system, so the delay function is quite important. Talking
thermostats are also programmable, which allows you to heat or cool your home
only when it's necessary.
Telephone Thermostats
You're pretty fortunate if you're able to own a vacation home, but it also means
you'll be paying to heat and cool two houses. Programmable home thermostats can
actually allow you to keep the heat or air turned off until the day you arrive, but it
requires precise planning of your comings and goings in order to get the desired
result. Telephone thermostats, on the other hand, allow you to heat or cool your
home with a simple phone call.
Telephone thermostats replace your existing home thermostats. They connect to
both the heating and cooling system and to your phone line. You simply have to call
your property and enter a password on a touch-tone phone to access the controls.
Then, you can adjust not only the temperature setting but the entire system mode
as well.
Telephone thermostats can handle these functions because they use
digital microprocessors as well as a touch-tone detector and telephone interface
module. Essentially, you can "talk" to your home thermostat via telephone thanks to
the internal telephone access module. A separate phone line isn't necessary, and
the telephone thermostat can even coexist with answering machines or voice mail.
However, if you have aDSL high-speed Internet connection, you will need a DSL
filter on the telephone line that connects to your talking thermostat.
With the advent of the smart phone and their handy applications, or apps, you can
bypass the land line altogether to control your home's temperature. Wi-fi
based smart thermostats are available now and allow users to control their
home's thermostat with the help of a touch-screen smart phone. There are quite a
few apps already available, and like most smart phone apps, they aren't very
expensive, with a range of free to a few dollars.
As technological advancements make their way to simple devices like thermostats,
consumers benefit greatly from the combination of features.

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