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Air conditioners are mainly used for cooling or reducing air humidity in buildings, in a hot or warm climate, or during hot spells in temperate climates. These comfort applications are designed to keep a constant temperature in a building's indoor environment despite outdoor weather changes. They increase productivity as no one can work properly when hot, or even warm.
For tall buildings natural ventilators and fans are certainly not sufficient as speed of wind is variable, and also proportional to altitude. The age-old method of cross ventilation (or passive cooling), used in tropical architecture, is excellent, and can be used to cool a building very effectively with no energy use. Even modern buildings like the Swiss Rea (the Gherkin) in London use passive ventilation.
In this technique warm air inside rooms is forced by cool air from outside to leave its space due to wind pressure. It requires two-sided openings to a room but obviously this method is not practical in every situation.
Air conditioning systems and ducts (piping to remove the warm air) are undeniably an expensive upgrade to your home. Their function is to distribute cool air evenly in every area of the room. They reduce humidity and purify air through air conditioning filters. However, installation of ducts requires specialized professionals so always opt for licensed HVAC experts.
Above: Domestic rated air conditioning unit outside building
In addition to domestic or office air cooling, air conditioning is used for many other purposes as well. For instance, air cooling and also cleaning and filtering systems are used where critical processes take place, like surgery in hospital, industrial processes such as making microchips, drugs and pharmaceuticals, and many more delicate applications.
Above: Air conditioning vent in Dubai
Other applications include textile factories, laboratories, vital data center processes, plants and intensive horticulture buildings require highly cleaned air and a specific temperature.
Like other appliances, air conditioners (ACs) come with variety of options each serving its own purpose for particular situations. These aircon basic types are:
More definitions of these types see our other pages on types of Air conditioners >
maintenance of air conditioners >