Your home air conditioner and the one that cools your workplace serve the same purpose: cooling the building’s occupants. But they have enough differences that they’re not interchangeable. In today’s post, Air Quality Heating & Air Conditioning looks at the differences between residential and commercial air conditioning systems.
How Do Air Conditioners Work?
To better explain the differences between air conditioning systems, let us first look at what they all have in common — the cooling process, which involves four steps:
- A substance called a refrigerant, in its cold and liquid state, passes through metal tubes in the evaporator housed in the heating and air conditioning system’s air handler. Air blowers in the air handler blow air through the tubes, pushing cooled air into the room while absorbing heat. Moisture from the air is likewise drawn from the air and drained outside.
- As the refrigerant leaves the air handler, it becomes warmer from the absorbed heat and changes into a gaseous state. The compressor, housed in the air conditioner’s outdoor unit, compresses the gas to increase pressure.
- The pressurized refrigerant rapidly passes through the condenser coils, releasing the heat outdoors through cooling fins.
- The air conditioner’s thermostatic expansion valve releases pressure that causes the refrigerant to return to its cold and liquid form, which flows back into the evaporator to start the cycle anew.
Key Differences Between Residential and Commercial Air Conditioners
Residential and commercial air conditioners differ in the following aspects:
- Size. Commercial air conditioners need to be bigger, not just because of the building’s square footage but also because of special requirements, examples of which include restaurants, laboratories, and server farms.
- Modularity. Residential cooling requirements generally stay the same. On the other hand, commercial cooling requirements change because of factors like changing occupants and their cooling needs, as described above. Commercial buildings are designed to allow relatively quick HVAC changes and installations when needed.
- Drainage. Commercial air conditioners extract moisture from dozens, even hundreds of rooms at any given time. Instead of collecting moisture in a drain pan as their residential counterparts, commercial air conditioners require a piping and drainage system.
Call Air Quality Heating & Air Conditioning for Your HVAC Needs
Learn more about Carrier heating cooling systems and our heating and cooling services. Call Air Quality Heating & Air Conditioning at (408) 920-3910, or fill out our contact form to schedule an appointment. We serve customers in San Jose and the surrounding communities.