This part resembles a furnace in many ways but is different in many ways as well. If your heating comes from another source, such as a hot water baseboard system or electric baseboard system, this part will be used for air conditioning only. A furnace uses gas to provide heat, whereas an air handler uses a heat pump and usually some form of backup heat. 

An air handler has two main parts: a blower with an electric motor and an evaporator coil. There are, of course, some other parts, but these are the main components. They are normally considerably cheaper than furnaces because of their simplicity, but they are limited in what they can provide. With that said, there are high-efficiency models that have multiple electronic boards and variable speed blowers that are capable of being part of a communicating system and are ultra-efficient. There are always both sides of the spectrum when it comes to HVAC systems and equipment.

A BTU is described as the amount of energy it takes to heat one pound of water by one degree. This is the standard for rating the heating capacity of a furnace or boiler. The higher the BTUs, the more heat that can be produced. On the other hand, the higher the BTUs, the more fuel that is consumed. That is why you want to make sure your system is sized by a knowledgeable HVAC technician because you could be burning more or not enough fuel than is required to heat your home.

The condenser is the outdoor part of your system. You know, the one you always have to weed whack around! This is the part of your system that takes the most abuse and normally has to be changed more often than the rest of your system. Coincidentally, it is also the most expensive part of your system, which is why it is very important to have a qualified HVAC technician service and clean it every year to ensure it lasts as long as possible. 

This part is responsible for extracting heat from the refrigerant coming from the house and sending it back to the indoor coil to send that ice-cold air through your ductwork and keep you comfortable during those blistering summer days. The more efficient this part is, the lower your electric bills will be.

Furnaces are an integral part of a gas heating system, whether it is LP or natural gas. Most furnaces used to be what was referred to as “80%” furnaces, meaning they only used 80% of the gas that was sprayed into the heat exchanger to heat the air in the ductwork, and the rest went out to the atmosphere. These types of furnaces typically had metal vent piping, and it got very, very hot. Today, the standard is “90%+” furnaces. These models utilize the heat and unburned gas from the vent pipe and circulate it through a “secondary heat exchanger” to make more usable heat, making the furnace more efficient! 

Today’s modern furnaces can go as high as 97% efficiency, meaning that for every $1.00 of gas you put into it, you’re getting $.97 worth of heat! Normally, these high-efficiency furnaces come equipped with variable-speed blowers and modulating gas valves that adjust the amount of gas and air needed to heat the space.

This is pretty much the same as a condenser but with one big difference: it can HEAT and COOL! Heat pumps work just like a standard condenser in the summer, providing you with nice, cool air to keep you comfortable. In the wintertime, they run in reverse to send hot refrigerant to the indoor coil to provide you with nice warm air to keep you comfortable on chilly days. 

These units have a big drawback here in NJ, as they don’t work very well when the outdoor temperatures drop below 28 degrees. They tend to freeze up, and then they have to defrost themselves to keep heating. During this process, you are left without heat. That is why when we install a heat pump system, we usually install what is known as “backup heat,” which is basically an electrical strip that heats up and provides heat while the heat pump is in defrost mode.

HVAC is an acronym that means “heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.” There is more to your system than just heating and cooling. How well does your system circulate air? Return air sizing and placement are just as important as the ductwork that feeds your hot and cold air. If your return air registers aren’t sized correctly, or they aren’t given much thought to placement, you could end up with hot spots in summer and cold spots in the winter. 

Your furnace or air handler could also be starving for air, which could cause your indoor coil to turn to ice or your furnace to shut down because the temperatures in the burner are getting too high. That means your comfort suffers, and so do your energy bills and, in some cases, even your equipment. It’s the returns job to take air from the room to be heated or cooled and, at the same time, give the furnace or air handler the proper amount of air needed to function properly, and filter the air you’re breathing.

This part of your system will either be on top of your furnace or underneath it, depending on the orientation of your feed and return ducts. This is the part that takes refrigerant from the condenser and allows the fan to either blow air over it or pull air through it to be cooled and sent through the ductwork. It is referred to as an evaporator coil because it will evaporate some of the humidity in the air, making your living space more comfortable. When you have an air handler, this part is built in, whereas, with a furnace, this part is separate and can be installed on top or underneath. It is very important that this part is cleaned at least once a year to ensure it is getting proper airflow and there are no obstructions in the coil surface. Another good reason to make sure your filters are changed at least once every six months.

SEER is the ratio of cooling in BTUs to energy consumed in watt-hours. It's a very common word that is thrown around in the HVAC trade that is actually an acronym for "seasonal energy efficiency ratio,” which basically determines how efficient your air conditioner is. 

For example, the minimum SEER rating of a modern air conditioner is 13, but you can go all the way as high as 21 SEER. If your unit is more than five years old, it could be as low as 11 SEER, which was the standard before the government raised the minimum to 13.

In the normal sense of the word, it means 2000 pounds. However, a ton in reference to air conditioning system capacity size describes the size or capacity of your air conditioning system. A ton is equivalent to 12,000 BTUs of cooling capacity. So, if you have a three-ton air conditioner, you have 36,000 BTUs of cooling capacity. BTUs of cooling are different than BTUs of heating because they are used to describe two different forms of energy. Typically, heating BTUs are in natural gas or propane, whereas an air conditioner’s BTUs are obtained from the capacity of cooling that the refrigerant can produce.