Why We Need AC
The use of air conditioners, popularly known as AC, has become almost compulsory in number of homes and houses. In fact there are number of people who just can’t live without AC, they will need AC in their room, office, car, theater and almost everywhere. Why is it that we need AC?
Broadly it is very easy to understand that we need AC because the surrounding temperature is very high. True, that’s one of the major reasons that we feel hot and our body needs to cool down. Apart from surrounding heat there are a number of other sources that release heat inside the room that lead to the rise in temperature of the room that causes uncomfortable conditions. Let us see some of the sources of heat generated inside the room.
1) Heat from the sun: Sun is the major cause of generation of heat during the summer seasons and it is also the major source of heat generation inside the room. The rays of the sun enters the room via windows, walls and roof of the room, partitions etc. This is the major cause of heat production inside the room. This heat increases the temperature inside the room and we feel uncomfortable.
The total amount of heat generated inside the room due to sun depends largely on the direction or alignment of the room with respect to the sun. In the morning maximum amount of heat is absorbed from the walls and windows in the east direction. During noon the maximum amount of heat is absorbed by the walls and windows in the south direction and in late noon the maximum heat comes inside the room from walls and windows in the western direction.
The walls also tend to store the heat for long intervals of time. The heat absorbed by the walls throughout the day tends to get released inside the room at night thus, adding the heat to the room even at night.
2) Heat produced by the human beings: The body of the human beings is like an engine. While the engine consumes fuel and runs the vehicle, the human body consumes food and performs work. Due to burning of the fuel, lots of heat is generated inside the engine, which is released by exhaust. Inside the human body also the calories inside the food are burnt. Part of these calories are used to perform work while the remaining of calories generate heat inside the body, which has to be thrown to the atmosphere. Thus the human beings generate lots of heat inside the room and which leads to increase in temperature inside the room and creation of uncomfortable conditions. As the number of human beings inside the room increase, the total heat generated by the human beings also increases.
3) Electrical and electronic appliances: In all the rooms there are some or the other electrical and electronic appliances. There can be tube lights, coffee maker, glass water heater etc. These also play an important role in generation of heat inside the room, increase of the temperature and creation of uncomfortable conditions. The coffee make and glass water heater can also increase humidity inside the room.
Due to above various sources of heat the temperature inside the room becomes very high and the relative humidity can also be high. Further, there can also be less flow of air inside the room. All these factors lead to creation of highly uncomfortable conditions inside the room.
As per the research carried out by various HVAC engineers, it is found that the human body feels comfortable at 25 degree Celsius of temperature, 50% relative humidity and with sufficient flow of clean air.
The AC removes all the heat that is generated inside the room and maintains the temperature of 20 degree Celsius. It also removes the excess amount of moisture from the air and maintains relative humidity of 50%. The air conditioner has fan that produces necessary flow of air and the filter removes all the dust and dirt particles from the air.