Are Air Conditioners Good Dehumidifiers?

Although the air conditioner is here almost for a century, the market for the device, especially the domestic market, is seeing a surge that it had never seen before. This can be attributed to various reasons. While some claim that more people these days have more disposable income which allows them to invest on these devices, there are others who believe that global warming and increased temperatures all over have pushed the sales for air conditioners upwards.

Whatever may be the reason, the fact is that sales have increased and those who are in the business of selling air conditioners are trying to make the most of this opportunity. This would make them claim things which are not completely true. They can even claim that air conditioners come with features, which upon investigation might prove to be completely false. So guard against what you are being told. It is your duty to be mindful. If you are duped, much of the blame rests with you.

Many air conditioner sales person would claim that their air conditioner dehumidify the air. Let us examine how much truth is there in their claim. It is a fact that air conditioners do actually dehumidify the air to a certain extent. The evaporator coil inside the air conditioner which is a below the dewpoint can actually condense the water vapor from the air that is being processed. So when the processed air is released into the room it is devoid of the water vapor that was there in earlier.

But this is by no way the primary function of the air conditioner. Its job is to maintain a temperature. That it dehumidifies is a bonus. But since dehumidifying is not its job, the amount of dehumidification it actually achieves is also limited. This can vary from anything between 40% to 60%.

If you are really keen on dehumidifying the air of your room then you must invest on a dehumidifier itself, a device dedicated to this job. The results you will achieve are much better.

So while buying an air conditioner, keep in mind why you are buying it. It is not for dehumidifying. If however, you feel that your conditioner does enough of dehumidifying and you are happy with what the air conditioner achieves then it is good for you. but never ever buy an air conditioner with the misconception that it will double-up as the dehumidifier.

Jason Uvios writes on "Are Air Conditioners Good Dehumidifiers?" to visit it :- air purifier,air ozonators and air conditioner

Benefits Of A Portable Air Conditioner

There are mostly three kinds of air conditioners which are used for commercial and domestic purposes. These are:

- The central air conditioners,
- The window air conditioners, and
- The portable air conditioners.

While the central air conditioners are meant for entire houses or offices, the window and portable air conditioners are meant for a smaller area, generally a room. The central air conditioners require a healthy investment and also your house needs to have the provisions to have it installed. Window air conditioners also need to be fitted to the window or a wall and requires installation facilities.

Portable air conditioners are much better on that count as there is no installation hassle and you can just put the plug in the socket and enjoy the nice cooling effects of an air conditioner.

Of course, being portable also allows it to be carried anywhere we want them to. For commercial purposes, the portable air purifiers are generally used in conjunction with the central air conditioners. Even with the best laid out duct network and proper outlets in a large factory floor there remains a few hot spots where air form the central air conditioner do not reach. For such areas placing a portable air conditioner can solve the problem. So, portable air conditioners can be of great benefit to many a business and warehouse owners. A comfortable environment ensures that their workers can focus on their work and not worry about other basic things.

Portable air conditioners are great for domestic purposes also. If you have a small family and most of the rooms in your house are not occupied at one given time, then you can go for portable air conditioners. That way you don?t have to invest separately on air conditioners for each room but carry your portable air conditioner where you are. When you are watching a movie on your television, place it in the living room. When it s time for bed you can just move it to your bedroom.

Portable air conditioners are also generally very durable. They are also equipped to deal with the most severe environments.

The portable air conditioners these days available in the market are based on two kinds of technologies ? they use either the Freon technology or the evaporation technology. Though the latter is a bit expensive, it is the most effective and popular version these days.

Jason Uvios writes on "Benefits of a Portable Air Conditioner" to visit it :- air purifier, air conditioner and air conditioner systems

Portable Air Conditioners Ensure Economy And Convenience

Small is beautiful and convenient and so is the portable air conditioner as it can be shifted from one place to the other very easily. Read on to find out all the other advantages.

With the onset of the damp weather, it becomes difficult to survive without constant central air conditioning but that can prove to be quite expensive. The answer to this problem is a portable air conditioner as it has many advantages. It is easy to shift from one place in the home to another and that makes a portable air conditioner the ideal cooling system solution for your home, office or industrial site.

The portable air conditioners are easy and quick to install, as they do not involve any lifting or tearing up of windowsills. Moreover it can be shifted very easily from one place in the home to the other. For taking care of the hot spots in the central air conditioning, the portable air conditioners are far more convenient than window air conditioners. It is also ideal for window shapes, which present problems for installation. There is nothing like portable air conditioners for use as a spot cooler in the home.

A portable air conditioner is an excellent choice for saving money as just one unit needs to be purchased and it can be shifted easily to where you need it as it is mounted on castors and some can weigh only about 36 pounds. Moreover, as only one room is cooled at a time instead of the whole house, the total energy consumption is very low as compared to other air conditioning systems.

Another advantage of portable air conditioners is the energy efficiency that they provide. The average efficiency is in the 8 to 10 range although some are as high as 15, which is 50 percent better than most older central air conditioners. The small size of the portable air conditioners is very advantageous and as such it can fit in a corner or against a wall. It functions like an effective dehumidifier if you do not vent the warm exhaust air out through a window and its size is also the same as that of a room dehumidifier.

In order to reduce humidity and allergies, even the small ones remove 35 pints of moisture per day from the room air. The portable air conditioners also use the heat-exchange principle as the other air conditioners to cool and dehumidify the air. The operating principle is also similar to a window air conditioner as the room air circulates over cold evaporator coils to cool and dehumidify it inside the unit. The room air is exhausted outdoor after flowing over the hot condenser. There is no chance of already-cooled indoor air escaping outside as two ducts are now used.

Nowadays, you have electronic controls in most models and you can set the desired room temperature, blower speed, start and stop timer, and operation mode (cool, dehumidify, heat). The portable air conditioners also have hand-held remote control with which you can conveniently change all the settings as per your need.

The other features of portable air conditioners include a built-in air cleaner with an optional charcoal filter and oscillating louvers to distribute the cool air throughout the room. You can also switch off the louvers to direct the flow of air towards yourself, if you so desire.

Get the right air conditioner the first time. Discover the advantages of different air conditioner models and which one best suits your needs by reading our free articles at: http://www.nichearticles.com/airconditioner/

A Cars HVAC System

Not only do we depend on our cars to get us where we want to go, we also depend on them to get us there without discomfort. We expect the heater to keep us warm when it's cold outside, and the air conditioning system to keep us cool when it's hot.
We get heat from the heater core, sort of a secondary radiator, which is part of the car's cooling system. We get air conditioning from the car's elaborate air conditioning system.
Despite its relatively small size, the cooling system has to deal with an enormous amount of heat to protect the engine from friction and the heat of combustion. The cooling system has to remove about 6,000 BTU of heat per minute. This is a lot more heat than we need to heat a large home in cold weather. It's good to know that some of this heat can be put to the useful purpose of keeping us warm.
Air conditioning makes driving much more comfortable in hot weather. Your car's air conditioner cleans and dehumidifies (removes excess moisture), the outside air entering your car. It also has the task of keeping the air at the temperature you select. These are all big jobs. How do our cars keep our "riding environment" the way we like it?
Most people think the air conditioning system's job is to add "cold" air to the interior of the car. Actually, there is no such thing as "cold," just an absence of heat, or less heat than our bodies are comfortable with. The job of the air conditioning system is really to remove the heat that makes us uncomfortable, and returns the air to the car's interior in a "un-heated" condition. Air conditioning, or cooling, is really a process of removing heat from an object (like air).
A compressor circulates a liquid refrigerant called Refrigerant-12 (we tend to call it "Freon," a trade name, the way we call copy machines "Xerox" machines). The compressor moves the Refrigerant-12 from an evaporator, through a condenser and expansion valve, right back to the evaporator. The evaporator is right in front of a fan that pulls the hot, humid air out of the car's interior. The refrigerant makes the hot air's moisture condense into drops of water, removing the heat from the air. Once the water is removed, the "cool" air is sent back into the car's interior. Aaaaaah! Much better. Newer cars have R-134 as the refrigerant, but work in the same way as R-12.
Sometimes we worry when we catch our car making a water puddle on the ground, but are relieved to discover that it's only water dripping from the air conditioning system's condenser (no color, no smell, and it dries!).
Note: Refrigerant is extremely dangerous. Many special precautions must be taken when it is present. It can freeze whatever it contacts (including your eyes), it is heavier than air and can suffocate you, and it produces a poisonous gas when it comes in contact with an open flame.
The above information is directly from the Auto Insight program, which you can buy online from AutoEducation.com.
Common Problems:

From time to time the A/C system needs to be recharged to bring it back up to maximum efficiency. Sometimes a leak may cause loss of refrigerant and will need to be fixed before refilling. It's difficult to tell if a leak is present without specific test equipment so let it up to a professional.
Corrosion will cause the heater core (secondary radiator) to leak. This will manifest itself by leaving steam into the passenger compartment and fogging your windows. You will know there is a leak by the sweet smell coming from your vents. Unfortunately changing the heater core is usually not the easier job in the world, as engineers tend to squeeze them into some pretty tight spaces under the dash.
We get heat from the heater core, sort of a secondary radiator, which is part of the car's cooling system. We get air conditioning from the car's elaborate air conditioning system.
Despite its relatively small size, the cooling system has to deal with an enormous amount of heat to protect the engine from friction and the heat of combustion. The cooling system has to remove about 6,000 BTU of heat per minute. This is a lot more heat than we need to heat a large home in cold weather. It's good to know that some of this heat can be put to the useful purpose of keeping us warm.
Air conditioning makes driving much more comfortable in hot weather. Your car's air conditioner cleans and dehumidifies (removes excess moisture), the outside air entering your car. It also has the task of keeping the air at the temperature you select. These are all big jobs. How do our cars keep our "riding environment" the way we like it?
Most people think the air conditioning system's job is to add "cold" air to the interior of the car. Actually, there is no such thing as "cold," just an absence of heat, or less heat than our bodies are comfortable with. The job of the air conditioning system is really to remove the heat that makes us uncomfortable, and returns the air to the car's interior in a "un-heated" condition. Air conditioning, or cooling, is really a process of removing heat from an object (like air).
A compressor circulates a liquid refrigerant called Refrigerant-12 (we tend to call it "Freon," a trade name, the way we call copy machines "Xerox" machines). The compressor moves the Refrigerant-12 from an evaporator, through a condenser and expansion valve, right back to the evaporator. The evaporator is right in front of a fan that pulls the hot, humid air out of the car's interior. The refrigerant makes the hot air's moisture condense into drops of water, removing the heat from the air. Once the water is removed, the "cool" air is sent back into the car's interior. Aaaaaah! Much better. Newer cars have R-134 as the refrigerant, but work in the same way as R-12.
Sometimes we worry when we catch our car making a water puddle on the ground, but are relieved to discover that it's only water dripping from the air conditioning system's condenser (no color, no smell, and it dries!).
Note: Refrigerant is extremely dangerous. Many special precautions must be taken when it is present. It can freeze whatever it contacts (including your eyes), it is heavier than air and can suffocate you, and it produces a poisonous gas when it comes in contact with an open flame.
The above information is directly from the Auto Insight program, which you can buy online from AutoEducation.com.
Common Problems:

From time to time the A/C system needs to be recharged to bring it back up to maximum efficiency. Sometimes a leak may cause loss of refrigerant and will need to be fixed before refilling. It's difficult to tell if a leak is present without specific test equipment so let it up to a professional.
Corrosion will cause the heater core (secondary radiator) to leak. This will manifest itself by leaving steam into the passenger compartment and fogging your windows. You will know there is a leak by the sweet smell coming from your vents. Unfortunately changing the heater core is usually not the easier job in the world, as engineers tend to squeeze them into some pretty tight spaces under the dash.

Kevin Schappell maintains http://www.carbuyersclub.com where he gives advice on buying, selling, insurance, and financing. A mechanical engineer and car guy, Kevin has decided to spend his online time helping others learn about automobiles. To learn more about how your car works, Kevin has createdhttp://www.mycarwizard.com