A traditional home comfort system has two parts: an indoor unit, such as a furnace or air handler, and an outdoor unit.

An air conditioner is the outdoor unit and coil that conditions the air and utilizes the indoor unit for circulation through your home.

Indoor and outdoor units are designed to work together.

When the air conditioner is properly matched with a furnace or air handler, you get maximum efficiency and longer system life.

Air conditioning and cooling efficiency is measured using a Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio (SEER).

A higher SEER means higher energy efficiency. The latest standard for SEER is 13 (beginning January 2006).
Central air conditioning helps keep your home cool and reduces humidity levels.

By transferring heat from air located inside your home to the outside, conditioned and cooled air is left to be re-circulated.

Using electricity as its power source, the compressor inside an air conditioning unit pumps coolant, or refrigerant,

back and forth to gather heat and moisture from indoors.

Warm air from inside is blown over the cooling coil, which is connected to the compressor, and then pumped back into your home.

The air conditioning or heat pump coil that is part of your heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) system is designed to cool the air passing through it, thus generating comfortable air for your home. During this process dehumidification also occurs as water condenses from the air stream onto the cooling coil. This water, referred to as condensate, drains away from the air conditioning coil into the drain pan and through the drain connection on the side of your furnace/air handler.

Common harmful molds can be found in air conditioning systems including Aspergillus, Penicillium and Cladosporium. Keeping coils sanitary—through cleaning and the application of  UV lights—is part of a system-wide approach, which can prevent spores from amplifying in the heating and air conditioning system.