As a homeowner, it’s helpful to know the various parts of the things that help keep you and your family comfortable. Appliances like your furnace or your electrical panel are complicated, and the condenser unit for your central heating and air system isn’t any exception.

For being something that doesn’t take up much space, it performs a pretty complex job, and without it your central air system wouldn’t be able to work the way it does. Let’s dive in and look at how this piece of machinery generates the cooled or heated air that provides you some much-needed comfort!

What the Condenser Unit Is

That metal box that sits outside on a concrete slab does more than just make a jarringly loud noise. Without it, there wouldn’t be any air in your home. At least, it wouldn’t be anything other than annoying room-temperature air. That thing is called the condenser unit! It houses a few different parts that work in tandem to provide air conditioning.

It starts with the tubes connecting your unit to the house. They carry something called refrigerant, which is a liquid that your A/C system relies on to cool/warm your home. It travels to something called a compressor, where that gas is formed into a liquid. Heat is removed as it travels through a series of condenser coils, after which it moves through an expansion valve – cooling the liquid down.

The newly cooled refrigerant moves to some evaporator coils, where the cold air is removed and is pushed into your home. And when you want hot air instead of cool air inside, the entire process gets reversed.

Sounds simple enough, right?

Potential Problems with Your Condenser

This whole process requires a lot of steps and a couple of instances where refrigerant changes states. So, the potential for problems to arise is fairly high. Don’t panic, though! These pieces of machinery are obviously designed with these processes in mind and the designers build them to avoid these issues as much as possible.

That said, complications do still happen. These are the ones you’ll probably run into more often than others:

• It’s dirty: As your condenser unit runs through cycle after cycle, it will eventually gather dust, dirt and other contaminants. This wears down the unit. Too much dirt will hamper its efficiency and make it harder for the unit to get the temperature of your air where you want it.
• It leaks: In addition to getting dirty, the tubes and hoses in your condenser unit’s internal parts can spring leaks. Unfortunately, these aren’t repairable – you’ll have to strongly consider replacing the unit itself if this happens.
• A coil breaks: This could happen for any number of reasons. Something might have bumped it and broken it, it could’ve corroded, or it could be because of something else entirely.

Whatever the issue is, call a professional – like the ones from Freedom Air & Heat. We’ll stop by and take a look at your condenser unit, or any other AC component.

Our goal is to make sure our neighbors receive the best and most reliable service around. Give us a call at 321-631-6886 to schedule an appointment today!