Austin Air Conditioning & Home Cooling Systems

A central air conditioning system is one of the most common HVAC systems here in the Austin area. Many people think of the outside unit as a standalone system, but the condensing unit is the part installed outside, on a slab next to the foundation of the house. It is called a split system because the second major component, the gas furnace is inside.

The ductwork is also an essential part of the HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioner) System and it is important that all 3 components are chosen with compatible capacity to create cooled and warmed air and distribute throughout the house.

How Central AC Systems Work

Our guide on furnaces explains how a gas furnace heats your home, so we’ll give our attention to central air conditioning in this guide.

The condensing unit contains a compressor that pumps refrigerant through a copper line into your home. The line is connected to an evaporator coil in your furnace. There, the liquid refrigerant literally evaporates into a gas, absorbing a large amount of heat from around the coil. That air is therefore cooled by the process. Your furnace blower is drawing warm air into the system through the return ducts to be cooled and pushing cooled air through the feed ducts to the rooms and zones in the house.

The hot refrigerant gas travels out of the house through a second copper line and enters the condensing coil in the condensing unit. There, it condenses back into a liquid, boiling off the heat in the process. The heat radiates out through the coil and is dissipated by the fan. This cycle continues until enough heat has been removed from the house to cool it to the level indicated on the thermostat. That is an overview of how central air conditioning works.