The Dynamic Duo: Evaporator and Condenser Coils

This month we continue our journey through the various types of HVAC coils with a look at condenser coils and evaporator coils and the way they work together to cool your home and business.

The primary job of the evaporator coil is to utilize refrigerant to absorb heat. In doing this, it creates cold air to cool your home or business. This coil is located inside your HVAC system near the blower system. It is typically made out of a heat conducting metal such as copper, aluminum, or steel. Most evaporator coils are made up of U-shaped tubing that is set into a panel. These panels are typically then positioned into an A-frame shape. Up and down the surface of these panels are metal fins. These fins serve to channel the airflow closer to the coils, making sure they are cooled as efficiently as possible.

On a working HVAC unit, a compressor will pull low-pressure, cold liquid refrigerant through the coil’s metal tubes. An expansion valve relieves pressure from the liquid refrigerant, which cools it down quickly. This cool refrigerant is used to absorb heat from the air, cooling down the environment.

The condenser coil is usually located in an outside HVAC unit, often called the “condenser unit.” After the refrigerant has done its work of absorbing heat from the air in your home, it travels outside via copper tubing to the condenser unit. Here the refrigerant gas flows through the condenser coils and releases the heat that was absorbed from the environment. The large fan located in the outside unit blows air over the condenser coils in order to cool down the refrigerant. As the refrigerant progresses through the various tubes of the coil it has prolonged exposure to the fan, and therefore has plenty of time to release the heat that has been collected.

This cooling process causes the refrigerant to return to a liquid state. Once this state is reached it flows back through the copper tubing into the home where it will re-enter the expansion valve. From here, the cycle continues as it returns to the evaporator coils and begins again.

As you can see from the description of the cooling cycle listed above, evaporator coils and condenser coils work in tandem to perform the important work of cooling your home or business. It is essential that both be in top functioning order for an HVAC system to work properly and efficiently. At Re-Coil Solutions we sell both types of coils and can even provide custom solutions to fit your particular needs. Replacing an entire system can be costly, that is why we work with you to find solutions for re-coiling your system instead of starting from scratch. Call us at 903-653-0942 with questions or to request a measurement consultation today!