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Increasingly
larger newly constructed homes teamed
with recent advances
in cooling technology are making natural gas a practical option for air
conditioning. |
Although popular during the 1960s,
natural gas air
conditioning fell
out of favor until recently due to lower efficiencies and higher
purchase costs. Since that time, conventional electric air conditioning
gained in popularity but did not offer acceptable solutions to the need
for zoned cooling in larger, high-end homes.
As reported in the ASHRAE
Journal, the average new home size has grown to more than 2,000 sq.ft.
Increasingly larger newly constructed homes teamed with recent advances
in cooling technology are making natural gas a practical option for air
conditioning. As reported in the ASHRAE Journal, the average new home
size has grown to more than 2,000 sq.ft. and more than 10% of all new
single-family detached homes built today are more than 4,000 sq.ft.
According to ASHRAE, the installation of traditional electric air
conditioning units in such large homes results in uneven temperature
distribution or requires multiple, expensive and complex zones with two
or more (often noisy) cooling units. Additionally, as electricity costs
increase, the efficiency and economy of natural gas becomes an
attractive solution to the high cost of comfort cooling.
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Over the last decade,
advances in natural gas cooling technology has made
large chiller units available to business and industry, allowing them
to take advantage of the efficiency, economy, reliability and superior
performance of natural gas. Now, this same technology has been applied
to small packaged units in sizes suitable for residential homes.
Residential air
conditioners are
small, direct-fired absorption
chillers. An absorption chiller uses a refrigerant, absorbent and heat
to create a cooling effect. Simply put, the cooling effect is
accomplished with the removal of heat through evaporation of a fluid
(refrigerant) at low pressure and the rejection of heat through the
condensation of a fluid (refrigerant) at a higher pressure.
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