Most homes experience an excess of humidity from time to time. Too much humidity can make your Austin, TX, home feel hot, sticky, and generally uncomfortable. Fortunately, you have some options when it comes to removing humidity from your home. One question that you may have is whether your air conditioner can play a role in removing humidity from your home. To understand if this is an option, keep reading to find out what your air conditioner can and cannot do.
Multiple Components of Cool Air
There are two main components that determine how warm the air feels on your skin. One component is the air temperature, which is determined by how quickly the air molecules are moving, and the other is the humidity, which is determined by how much water vapor is in the air. The good news is that your air conditioner is designed to address both of these components at the same time. In other words, your air conditioner can both slow down air molecules and remove water vapor.
How Does It Work?
Given the pervasiveness of humidity in Austin, it can seem almost like a miracle that your air conditioner would be able to remove the humidity from the air in your home. The truth is, though, that removing the humidity is actually a fairly simple process.
The humidity is removed by a component of your air conditioner called the evaporator coil. This coil is made from a single tube that reverses back and forth on itself dozens of times. When your air conditioner is running, cold refrigerant runs through this tube, which causes the temperature of the metal in the tube to drop. Once the temperature of the metal drops below the dew point of the air that passes over it, the water vapor in the air can condense on the tube, thus removing the humidity from your home’s air.
Ultimately, this water vapor collects to the point that it drops off of the evaporator coil and into a condensate pan underneath the coil. After that, the liquid, called condensate, goes down a drain that exits from your home. Thus, with this one simple principle put into action, your home’s air becomes much more comfortable.
What Are the Challenges?
Thanks to the simplicity of the humidity-removal process, your evaporator coil can do its job with very little maintenance from Faught Service Company in Austin. However, there are problems that can occur if you neglect your air conditioner completely.
The main problem that happens with the evaporator coil itself is that it becomes too dirty to effectively allow the water vapor to condense on the metal tube. Think of it like a cold glass being wrapped in a napkin. If you run your air conditioner without an air filter in place or if you have a particularly dusty home, your evaporator coil can become dusty to the point that it lowers the efficiency and cooling capacity of your air conditioner.
Problems can also occur if a small amount of your refrigerant leaks from the refrigerant line, as this also lowers the cooling capacity of your air conditioner. Fortunately, proper maintenance by Faught Service Company can help you avoid these problems, especially if you maintain your air conditioner every year.
Trust the Experts
At Faught Service Company, we believe in doing things the right way the first time. We want you and your family to be comfortable in your Austin home, which is why we offer a variety of home services to help your HVAC system operate perfectly at all times.
To help your home stay at a comfortable temperature year-round, we offer maintenance, repair, and installation services for all brands of air conditioners and furnaces. Plus, to help keep these systems running as they should, we offer duct cleaning and replacement services to ensure that the conditioned air is efficiently routed throughout your home.
In addition, we can perform energy audits of your home to check for ways that you might be unknowingly wasting energy so that you can potentially lower your utility bills. Another way we can help you save energy is by installing a new programmable or smart thermostat in your home.
Faught Service Company has been proud to serve this area for over 40 years. During that time, we’ve learned how to keep our customers happy with top-notch service and unending integrity. This approach to business has earned us accreditation with the Better Business Bureau and NCI. It has also earned us countless five-star reviews that you can check out for yourself. If your home is more humid than you’d like, give us a call at Faught Service Company today. We look forward to serving your indoor home climate comfort needs.
