Residential air conditioning is a complex
subject with definite and consistent rules. There are two components that
must be removed from the air. These are heat and moisture. They are of equal
importance. One of the air conditioning rules is: The faster you run the
blower, the more heat and less moisture you remove from the air. The
slower you you run the blower, the more moisture and less heat you remove
from the air. With a fixed-speed on/off, part-time blower, there is a
definite limit to how slow you can run the blower. The FanHandler gives you
the best these two choices by covering them both.
When
the air conditioner compressor first comes on, the FanHandler controlled blower
is running at a slow speed. That catches the latent (humidity) load and really
pulls moisture from the air. At the same time, the cold air conditioning coil
reduces the temperature of the air going over it. This immediately increases the
blowers speed and and sends the cool/dry air into your home. The speed of the
blower stops increasing somewhere before it reaches full-speed. This is where it
has found a balance between the humidity load and the heat load. The FanHandler
controlled blower doesn't let go of the humidity load until it is down the drain
and out of your home.
An interesting thing happens in Florida or any
of the gulf states. When contractors install their first FanHandler, they get
worried because the blower seems to be running too slow. The reason for this is
that the FanHandler has found that the air is full of moisture and is busy
helping the air conditioning system to remove it. When indoor relative humidity
runs in the 75% range, there is a lot of moisture for the FanHandler to work on.
When the contractor checks back the next day, the temperature of the air coming
from the registers is cooler and moving faster and the indoor relative humidity
is in the low 50% range.
It
is disturbing to see the direction that the air conditioning industry is taking.
Utility companies will kick-back a couple hundred dollars to the contractor or
homeowner if they can
save a little electricity. So, what is happening? The pressure is on the
equipment manufacturers to speed up their blowers. Remember, the faster the
blower speed the more heat and less humidity is removed from the air. (some
water is always removed) The thermostat reacts to temperature. Remove the heat
and the temperatures drop. The thermostat shuts off the air conditioner and
blower before enough moisture is collected. So you save electricity. This is
false economy because the homeowner has to set the thermostat to a lower
temperature setting in the attempt to get rid of that hot muggy feeling. Because
the thermostat is set lower, the air conditioner runs longer. Thus more
electricity is used. The resulting lower temperature, combined with not enough
humidity being removed, causes the home to feel cool and clammy. That moldy sock
smell shows up about then.
The
result is that speeding up the blower to ridiculous levels has produced what we
consider is an unlivable situation. This might work in a laboratory setting,
where nobody has to live all day. We don't think it works in the real world. PLUS,
the high-speed blower strips moisture from the air conditioning coil and
sends it down the ductwork. (mold?)
Here
are facts that have not been taken into consideration. The slower the air moves
across an air conditioning coil, the colder that coil is and the more moisture
it collects. the faster that air moves across the coil the warmer it becomes and
the less moisture it collects. The colder the coil's surface is, the better
water will stick to it. The warmer the coil is, the less water will stick to it.
Combine high air speed with a warm coil and you have water shooting down the
ductwork. The FanHandler solves most of this problem by limiting the air flow
until the moisture is removed from the air.