HVAC System – Your Choice in Cooling and Heating

HVAC is actually an acronym that stands for heating, ventilation and air conditioning. An HVAC system is the overall system that performs the heating and cooling (or both) for residential, commercial or industrial structures.

The system is also responsible for providing fresh outdoor air to dilute the airborne contaminants in the system. These would include the odors from the occupants, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) coming from interior furnishings, chemicals from cleaning and others.

Properly maintained, the system provides comfortable indoor environment. However, not all types of HVAC systems work the same way. Some are faster than others while some others serve larger environments.

In certain situations, some HVAC system Las Vegas are more effective than others.

Air conditioner

An air conditioner works by cooling and dehumidifying the air as it passes a cold coil surface. This indoor coil is called air-to-liquid heat exchanger. It has rows of tubes that pass the liquid through the coil.

DX or direct expansion equipment uses a refrigerant as the liquid medium. CW or chilled water can also be used. If the required temperature of a chilled water system is near the freezing point of water, a freeze protection is added (glycols or salts). All these liquids deliver the cooling coil at a cold temperature.

Split system

This is a combination of an indoor air handling unit and an outdoor condensing unit. The indoor unit has a supply air fan and an air-to-refrigerant heat exchanger (or cooling coil) and the expansion device.

The outdoor unit has a compressor and a condenser coil. These are usually found in residential or small commercial buildings. Of all the available AC systems, this has the highest energy efficiency rating.

Packaged system

This is a single unit that combines all the components in the split type system. Since this is a package, it is placed outside the building and the indoor air is “ducted” from the building to the packaged system and back.

This unit has a seasonal efficiency rating (SEER) from 10 to 18. If heating is needed, alternate methods of heating the interior of the building are used. These are usually in the form of electric or gas heating.

Heat pump

These are like the cooling only systems with one exception: a special valve in the refrigeration piping lets the refrigeration cycle to be operated in reverse.  A cooling only system ejects heat to the outside while it cools the indoor air.

A heat pump can also cool the indoor air, although when the valve is reversed, the indoor air gets heated. An electric resistance heater can be used to help to assist the heat pump at lower temperatures. In colder climates, these pumps needs a defrost period.

Chilled water

In chilled water system, water is pumped throughout the building to “chilled water coils”. Because the liquid water needs to be at cold temperatures, a cooling plant is needed.

This is the chiller plant. The vapor compression chills the water to cold temperature and pumps the cold water to air-to-water heat exchangers where needed.

Overall, it’s important in an HVAC system Las Vegas to check on the efficiency and energy use before buying.