There are several types of air conditioners that can be used in homes, hotels, offices, religious places or any other kind of buildings. The most common ones include; Window Air Conditioning System, Split Air Conditioner System, Central Air Conditioning Plants and Packaged Air Conditioners. All of them need to be serviced so as to maintain their functions.
An air conditioners filter, coils, and fins require regular maintenance for the unit to function well throughout its years of service. Neglecting necessary maintenance results to a constant decline in air conditioning performance while energy use steadily increases.
According to research, air conditioners use about 5% of all the electricity produced in the developed world, at an annual cost of more than US$ 11b to homeowners in USA. As a result, roughly 100 million tons of carbon dioxide is released into the air each year, this results to an average of about two tons for each home with an air conditioner. The need for proper maintenance is therefore crucial.
Air Conditioner Filters
The most important maintenance task that will ensure the efficiency of your air conditioner is to routinely replace or clean its filters. Clogged, dirty filters block normal airflow and reduce a system’s efficiency significantly. With normal airflow obstructed, air that bypasses the filter may carry dirt directly into the evaporator coil and impair the coil’s heat-absorbing capacity. Replacing a dirty, clogged filter with a clean one can lower your air conditioners energy consumption by 5% to 15%.
Air Conditioner Coils
The air conditioner evaporator coil and condenser coil collect dirt over their months and years of service. A clean filter prevents the evaporator coil from soiling quickly. In time, however, the evaporator coils will still collect dirt. This dirt reduces airflow and insulates the coil, reducing its ability to absorb heat. To avoid this problem, check your evaporator coil every year and clean it as necessary.
Coil Fins
The aluminum fins on evaporator and condenser coils are easily bent and can block airflow through the coil. Air conditioning wholesalers sell a tool called a “fin comb” that will comb these fins back into nearly original condition.
Future of Air conditioners
Energy International Corporation based in the Middle East is an air conditioning company licensed to manufacture Penn and MetalAire products in the UAE. Their Communications Coordinator, John Peter says that the latest trend in air-conditioning in the Middle East market is moving towards district cooling which is the centralized production and distribution of cooling energy. They are moving towards this direction as a means of air-conditioning large buildings and even the entire residential installations. He further says that District cooling doesn’t require as much electricity to run as it doesn’t use compressors. By using this process of district cooling, chilled water will be delivered to buildings like offices and factories needing cooling. In winter, the source for the cooling can often be sea water, so it is a cheaper resource than using electricity to run compressors for cooling.
Another trend is the move to build LEED Certified structures because it saves money and resources and has a positive impact on the health of occupants, while promoting renewable, clean energy. Most of the major projects in the market are being certified as LEED, Gold and Platinum. Their major manufacturing partners are set up to help with LEED Certification as it is prevalent in the U.S.
GEA Heat Exchangers headquartered in Germany, is a competent partner as a manufacturer as well as a consultant. Gert Bakkeren, Director Product Management at GEA sees the future of air conditioning as having more integrated controls and communication with Building Management Systems and energy efficiency.
