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Dealing with leaky AC evaporator coils can be costly. Yet Air Conditioning coolant leaks have long plagued homeowners and businesses across the nation. The Trane heating and cooling equipment manufacturing company has examined and taken control of this situation.
The Role of Refrigerant Consumption
Before discussing the refrigerant leak-factor, one major AC equipment misconception should be corrected. Air Conditioners do not consume refrigerant. Aside from deliberate draining of your system, coolant leaks are the only reason your home or business Air Conditioner should lose refrigerant.
Unless a leak develops, the refrigerator in your kitchen never requires a refrigerant recharge. Likewise it is with the central cooling system in your home or business. Due to the nature of a sealed refrigerant unit, coolant fluids are not consumed; they are merely harnessed. Your home air conditioner collects, pressurizes, converts and then recycles the system coolant from one harnessing session to the next -- all of this taking place within the sealed compartments of the unit.
A Change in Manufacturing Techniques
For years, central Air Conditioning systems have used copper evaporator coils. It services a two-fold purpose:
* Copper coils enable efficient heat transfer * Copper is pliable and easy to shape.
However, recent tests concerning costs, efficiency and effectiveness have proven the value of using aluminum coil AC components. Many modern HVAC equipment manufacturers now offer aluminum coil heating and cooling solutions. For example: The Comfort" Coil, a system that uses an all-aluminum, rust resistant coil, is currently the headliner Trane Heating and Cooling air conditioning system.
The significance of such a change cannot be ignored. Even residents in Phoenix Arizona, a state that produces better than half of the U.S. supply of copper, are beginning to favor aluminum-based cooling products from Trane and other HVAC manufacturing companies.
Copper Tubing -- Efficient Yet Troublesome
Due to the abundant supply, the pliability of the metal, and the ease associated with worksite soldering, copper has served well in the cooling industry. However, copper is more expensive than aluminum. Therefore any AC system that uses copper coils has a higher upfront installation costs that systems which use aluminum coils. However, some vendors claim that copper coils are somewhat more efficient than aluminum coils and that they are also less susceptible to damage.
But is there a hidden cost to using copper? Trane believes that the abundance of leaky copper air conditioning coils reflect just such a hidden cost. Easy AC repair is worthless if the need for repair can be reduced or avoided.
Some years back, Trane initiated investigation into the cause behind so many Air Conditioning coolant leaks. They pinpointed three basic facts:
1. First year problems related to factory or field connections were rare 2. System leaks typically occur after the unit is four years old 3. Most air conditioning coolant leaks link to the walls of the copper tubing rather than the points of braze or join connections.
Cause and Effect:
As Trane technicians and engineers continued to study the situation, they observed that most AC coolant leaks could be linked to certain brands and certain energy-efficiency changes in heating and cooling product designs. In order to argument heat transfer -- and to dive nearer in pricing to the costs of modern aluminum coil systems -- manufacturers of copper coil AC systems had switched to tubing with thinner walls.
In essence, the thin design of modern copper air conditioning coils resulted in earlier breakdown in tubing strength. Yet leakage was the effect of thinner walled copper tubing -- not the cause for why the thinner tubing failed.
Trane engineers dug deeper. Microscopes revealed that the leaks in copper tubing were linked to microscopic pinholes in the material. Further studies revealed the relationship between air conditioning coolant leaks and the presence of Formic acid.
The Trane researchers dug even deeper. They needed to understand how the formic acid developed. Turns out that formaldehyde pollution occurs naturally in almost every home or business. When the formaldehyde converts into Formic acid, copper tubing begins to corrode. Formicary corrosion is slow, and typically takes five years or longer to affect the copper tubing used in modern heating and cooling systems.
Correcting Air Conditioning Coolant Leaks
Removing the copper coils reduces AC-related formicary corrosion. In 2005, Trane began to focus on all-aluminum AC coils. The effects are good.
The role of performance:
Phoenix Arizona is one of the most rugged areas in the nation. The desert region reaches summer temperatures as high as 120 degrees Fahrenheit. The Phoenix climate is typically defined as subtropical. Efficient home air conditioning is not only necessary for comfortable living, but can also provide a primary component of adequate health care. When residents in a state that headlines the copper mining industry choose aluminum coil AC systems as a main source for battling the effects of extreme temperatures, all issues pertaining to performance must surely be conquered.
Arguments in favor of copper AC coils over aluminum AC coils strive to convince homeowners of a better comfort ratio to expense ratio. Neither governmental nor educational resources support either side of this argument. Trane and other manufacturers proclaim aluminum-based cooling systems as an efficient, effective and less troublesome solution to home cooling requirements.
The role of cost: No matter what other arguments exist, no vendor challenges the fact that aluminum coils are cheaper to manufacture than copper coils. Therefore, if the refrigerant leak factor can be reduced or eliminated, and the efficiency ratio of either system remains relatively similar, what resident of any city would seek to pay a higher price for a copper coil AC system?
