The question:
What does “refrigeration” mean for cooling? An evaporator? Central air? Standing in the open fridge?
Bravo! You have exposed one of the oozing wounds in the Arizona Regional Multiple Listings Service. Right there among all the utilities information, it will say “Refrigeration”.
What does it mean?
Refrigeration is distinguished from either an evaporative cooler, a wall air conditioning unit or nothing. An evaporative cooler — also known as a swamp cooler — works by blowing dry desert air through a burlap-like pad saturated with water. A certain amount of the water evaporates, cooling the air, which is then blown through the house as a crude form of air conditioning. An even cruder form of this cooling system was invented by Native Americans in the Southwest.
Refrigeration, of course, is true central air conditioning. A noble gas is put under high pressure, causing it to cool substantially. This cold gas is forced through a radiator, as air is driven past the cold radiator fins. The cooled air is blown thorough the house.
There is actually an interim step between the evaporative cooler and central air conditioning — the chiller system — a heating and cooling system not-unlike the radiator systems used Back East.
Now you know more than you’d ever dreamed about desert cooling systems.
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jf.sellsius says:
Build undeground for that naturally cool feeling.
September 26, 2006 — 7:14 am
Greg Swann says:
> Build undeground for that naturally cool feeling.
Doesn’t work. Wall units don’t work. Evaporative coolers work very poorly until about July 15th, when humidity goes too high and stays there until about September 15th. Chiller systems — found in some mid-century multi-family communities — can work well, except that on cold summer days you have no heat, on hot winter days you have no colling. Refrigerative air conditioning takes a lot of power and is costly to maintain — but it works.
Incidentally, every condominium built here will have its own AC compressor and air handler — owned by the property owner, who owns nothing else but a cube of space and a share in the common property. The air handler will be in your unit, overhead usually, but the compressor will have to be outdoors. This is a parasitic use of space, and it’s why our condo projects are always fairly small compared to those in other cities.
September 30, 2006 — 12:55 pm