Talk:Air conditioning

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This article is the result of spliting air conditioner -- this air conditioning article covers the general history and theory, while air conditioner is about specific types of equipment. 129.237.114.171 19:21, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Note: this needed split is similar to refrigeration vs. refrigerator. 129.237.114.171 19:23, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this page is very imformative and the explanation of how air conditioning works is not very clear. More information is needed, such as the first bulidings that were air conditioned. How it opened up the warmer parts of countries to developement etc. Air conditioning has had a very large impact on our society and this should be included in this article

Contents 1 Chiller 2 Thermal Shock 3 Please remove the advertisement at the end of the page 4 moved "vapor-compression refrigeration cycle" and "refrigerants" sections 5 Need information on natural gas air conditioning 6 Requested article

[edit] Chiller

As of December, 2007, this page is not talking to the Chiller page. There is also much more technology background than the article presents. For example, up through the 1950s home air conditioners powered by natural gas were fairly common, working with either lithium bromide or ammonia solutions. These and similar technologies are found in "absorption chillers" today but mainly in units scaled for commercial and industrial use, although smaller units are available in Australia and Japan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.199.40.61 (talk) 10:08, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thermal Shock

Hello, I undid the comments by Auvi82, because the absence of a thermal gradient would mean that the two temperature are the same (dT/dx (or dT/dt) =0, integrate T = c). I assume you meant that if the temperature gradient is too steep a person faces thermal shock. To what extent is thermal shock an issue for humans? Does a temperature change of 5-10 deg. C cause a problem? I don't know, and we should endeavour to find some authorative comment on this. User A1 12:44, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

From personal experience going out-of-doors in the winter, it would need to be a change of more than 50 degrees C. --Carnildo 21:37, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

It may vary for example the young and elderly may have problems. Either way, I think the statement is out for now. User A1 00:18, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Thermal shock in England (from my 30 years experience) mainly happens (or will happen) when you walk in to say a shop from a high outdoor temperature, to a lower temperature. This happens when over 10degF (5.5degC) difference, that's why some shops (with good controls systems) track the outdoor temperature i.e. out doors 80degF - indoors 70degF, then outdoors 85degF indoors 75degF etc. Relative Humidity (RH) is also a factor, a lower indoor RH can make things worse.

Unfortunately we need verifiable information, not anecdotal information or original research. Perhaps there exists some peer reviewed data on this User A1 17:55, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please remove the advertisement at the end of the page

I'mm not sure how so i think I'll just delete the offending material, and if someone wants to clean up the rest.... then cool —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.153.253.16 (talk) 18:06, 1 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] moved "vapor-compression refrigeration cycle" and "refrigerants" sections

to the existing subject article vapor-compression refrigeration where this is more pertinent and useful as an introduction. In this article, let's focus on air conditioning with references but not put much detail about the technologies used to move the heat. Bernd in Japan 23:48, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Need information on natural gas air conditioning

A long time ago I owned a house with a natural gas air conditioning unit. I had no idea how it worked; all I know is that every summer I had to light the pilot light in the outdoor compressor unit. A Google search for "natural gas air conditioning" yields many hits saying that these units were common in the 1930s-1940s, but none explain how it works! How the heck do you burn gas to get cool air?? =Axlq 17:05, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I have no knowledge of your system in particular, but I can hypothesise: Depressurising a gas to room temperature will cause the gas's temperature to decrease, see Joule-Thomson effect, which will allow you to remove heat from a system. This can be achieved using a throttling valve. If you then flow the gas across an insulating boundary use a compressor, you can repressurise it and send it back through the throttling valve. The compressor can be powered using a natural gas combustion engine, which is powered by tapping the expanded (depressurised) gas and feeding it into the engine with some air, thus powering the compressor. You could simply drive the compressor with natural gas and use R22 as the refrigerant, which is probably more efficient, as the chemical properties of R22 means it has a really nice Rankine_cycle diagram for air conditioning, better than HFC-134a. Of course you would put the compressor *outside* the area to be cooled ;) User A1 08:32, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

This is probably the system. When I was living in one room I bought a small refrigerator that used this method of operation because it was silent and wouldn't keep me awake at night. I only knew that it worked on ammonia: had I known about the hydrogen I might still have stayed awake at night!--Old Moonraker 10:25, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requested article

It might be a good idea to write an article about the specific application of air conditioning in vehicles (namely, cars). Such an article might talk about its history, the first (crude) units and how expensive they were, and how it was improved through the years to be almost standard equipment on every car. [[Briguy52748 14:34, 11 October 2007 (UTC)]]