Packaged air conditioners efficiently keep you cool in the summer. Packaged heat pumps provide efficient electric heating and cooling to your home or business. Gas furnace/air conditioner packaged products add the warmth of cozy gas heat in the winter. Dual-Fuel Packaged Units combine cooling with heat pump and gas heating for optimal year-long performance in one self-contained unit.This site contains useful information and resources to help you make decisions about air conditioning and heating for your home or business. In the site, you will find unbiased facts and observations organized by topic and level of detail you need. Although we do provide some brand specific information, everything you read here was intentionally researched and written from a “brand neutral” viewpoint. The findings here come from our interviews with HVAC industry experts, air conditioning and heating contractors, equipment manufacturers, and homeowners.A/C and heating equipment can generally be divided into two categories: central systems and portable units.

This site focuses on central air conditioning and heating systems and the main categories of repair, maintenance and replacement plus related AC topics. We also included information about fixed (non-portable) ductless air conditioners and heat pumps that are designed for smaller spaces. If you are seeking resources on window air conditioners and portable room heaters, we recommend you visit a site that focuses on those.Achieving a comfortable and healthy indoor environment involves more than just cooling or heating of the air. You will find the information you need here on air filters, air purifiers, dehumidifiers, air duct cleaning, carbon monoxide detection and prevention, and other indoor air quality topics. Decisions you make about heating and air conditioning in your home or business directly affect energy usage and your bills every month. This site also addresses energy use and conservation improvements, such as radiant barriers and solar screens, emphasizing the “whole house” approach.

The topic of air conditioning and heating involves a lot of details and tends to be time consuming to work through. So that you can find the topic and level of detail you want quickly, we organized the site navigation as follows:Need Help Finding a System? Our interactive tool will help you select the perfect air conditioner for your family. Heat Pump Buying Guide Save energy with a heat pump. Find out why a heat pump may be smart for your home. Frigidaire 10-YearWarranty & Quality Pledge Quality, comfort and total peace of mind.Occasionally I get asked if it's OK to put the condensing unit for an air conditioner or heat pump in a garage or other room that's a buffer space. The thinking is that since the temperature may not be as hot in summer or as cold in winter, the system will operate more efficiently. I just saw yesterday that this same question came up in a column in Home Power magazine, so I thought this would be a good time to cover this issue (once and for all?) here.

The answer is no. In fact, the answer is an emphatic NO. The way an 'air source' heat pump or air conditioner works is that it exchanges heat with the air surrounding the condenser. In summer, it dumps heat into that air. ac unit draftIn winter, it absorbs heat from that air. tax credit for ac unitWhen the condenser sits outdoors, it's connected to a mass of air that's practically infinite. uv lights for ac- do they workIn other words, no matter how much heat that unit dumps outside, it's not going to change the outdoor temperature. If you put the condenser in a garage, attic (as shown above), or other space, it's now connected to a finite mass of air. As it dumps heat into that air in summer, the temperature in the room will rise. As it pulls heat from it in winter, the temperature will drop.

The smaller that room, the more temperature change you'll get. What do you think happens to the efficiency and capacity of an air conditioner when it has to dump its heat into hotter air? What happens when the air gets too hot? The condenser may not be able to do its job - condensing the refrigerant so that it all becomes a liquid again. The refrigerant goes to the evaporator coil hotter and wetter and at higher pressure. That's a recipe for failure. I have no idea why anyone would put an air conditioner in an attic, as shown above, but the second photo of that unit shows another problem. That system not only is working with a smaller, hotter volume of air, but it's sucking blown insulation up against the coil, reducing the air flow. I guess they wanted to make sure that system failed as quickly as possible. Even in a cold climate where you don't use the system for cooling, you can't do this. Not only is there not enough air, but if the temperature is higher, it's at least partially due to heat loss from the house.

A better building enclosure is a much more practical way to keep the heat in your home in winter. The photo above is from a Facebook page called HVAC hacks and other screw ups. They show lots of good photos of HVAC gone wrong. If you think I post some ugly stuff here, take a look at their page. They posted the photo above yesterday. The caption said that in addition to the 6 condensers you see here, another 5 were in the room, too. That's 11 condensers in a room so small that the widest angle photo he could get shows only about a 10 foot section.Not only is there a small volume of air, but you have 11 condensers fighting over the little that's there. Yeah, they've got louvers connecting it to more air (a parking deck? outdoors?), but that's not sufficient. The upshot of all this is that if the idea ever occurs to you to put a condenser in a place other than the outdoors, don't do it. Put it outside and make sure it has plenty of space around it for good air flow. An Easy Way to Save Money — Let Your Air Conditioner Breathe!