Talk:Air conditioning

"AC" or "A/C" ?

I'm told "in the industry" AC refers to Alternating Current, and A/C refers to Air Conditioning. Does anyone have any knowledge on this? --68.55.169.90 (talk) 23:07, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I do not think there is a standard either way. I have never seen "alternating current" abbreviated "A/C," but I have seen "air conditioning" abbreviated both ways. VQuakr (talk) 18:04, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

actually, 'in the industry" we will usually not need to make a distinction as we're smart enought to know by context. Verbally, NO ONE says "A slash C" and hardly anyone says AC after 440 or 220 or 110 (as in volts) anyway. Written it is usually just AC (for both/either) as it is faster. However, HVAC is the 'proper' term for air conditioning. (Heating, Ventilation, And Cooling; or Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning altho the last is somewhat redundant). Ken (talk) 17:55, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Professional bodies

Why do we have a section on professional bodies (not sourced at that)? This seems entirely unnecessary, the whole article reads anyway as a promotion piece for air conditioning and this just makes it worse. The selecting of only certain countries is also not comprehensible so I have removed the whole section. ReyRichard (talk) 17:42, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if it really could be considered blatant promotion, but meh no big deal on removing it either. The one I am more familiar with, ASHRAE, is pretty influential on efficiency standards, etc (the mechanical and energy codes, for example, often cite ASHRAE publications for design standards). As such, I would not be opposed to re-adding a less puffy bit on such organizations' impact on AC. VQuakr (talk) 18:04, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Sure. ReyRichard (talk) 19:25, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

history section deficient

see Arab architecture and passive cooling, induced airflow, convection, Bernoulli, Venturi, Coandă effect

See: Pergola

G. Robert Shiplett 12:25, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

History: Social and health impacts of air conditioning.

This article includes superb technical info but begs for the addition of information on the social and health impacts of AC during its early adoption in mid 20th century. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dosware (talk • contribs) 05:07, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Merge from air conditioner

I've re-merged this page with content taken from air conditioner. This was split in 2006 following the logic behind splitting refrigerator and refrigeration: however, that's led to the pages containing largely-overlapping content which is less well maintained for being split over two pages. In the process I removed a lot of material which was unsourced or plainly copyvio from the merged content.

Lots of work will be required to bring this article up to scratch, but with the newly-imported material this should be easier to do in the long run. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:08, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

n — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.81.148.79 (talk) 10:17, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Health Issues Junk Science

In the section "Health Issues" para 3, we have the unsupportable statement "Spending most of the time in AC environment could lead to lower immunity because, lack of free supply of oxygen hinders with normal functioning of white blood cells that fight bacteria." I'm deleting the para because the "supporting" reference is a newspaper article which supplies no evidence--and even fewer citations--that refrigerated (or any other type of) airconditioning removes oxygen from the air. If anybody can find valid science to support the claims in the para, then youse can put it back. 203.161.102.82 (talk) 06:32, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I haven't had the chance to read that article but if anyone is considering reinserting those claims, please make sure the source satisfies WP:MEDRS, if not, do not include it. YuMaNuMa ^Contrib 07:04, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

More Junk Science

In addition to the reappearance of the issues noted above by YuMa, paragraph 5 of "Health Issues" has been deleted.

The paragraph stated "AC achieves cooling through the process of evaporation. Due to this, mucous membranes in the nose and mouth get dry...". User:AgniKalpa, the author of the offending edit, seems to believe that air conditioners cause evaporation of water vapor, thus drying the air in the room. This is incorrect.

For clarity, most air conditioners remove heat from a room by passing air over a coil in which the coolant, having passed from a higher pressure region to a lower pressure region, evaporates, dispersing the energy in the mass of the coolant over a larger volume, creating a volume of lower thermal energy relative to the air outside the coil. The second law of thermodynamics dictates that some of the heat in the air will be conducted through the metal of the coil into the coolant. The coolant is then forced into an area of higher pressure where the process is reversed, with the heat leaving the coolant outside the area to be cooled. The evaporation that results in cooling happens entirely within a sealed system, and can not remove moisture from the air as water vapor can not pass through the walls of the coil.

If User:AgniKalpa's belief were valid, the evaporation would add moisture to the air, not remove it.

The drying effect, as already explained earlier in the article, is caused by condensation of water vapor already in the air. The amount of condensation #and therefore, dehumidification# can be, and in many cases is, regulated by controlling the temperature of the coils. Specifically, keeping the coils above the dew point will prevent condensation, and may actually raise the relative humidity of the room by lowering the temperature while maintaining the absolute humidity.

Some air conditioners, as described in the section on "evaporative coolers", actually do use evaporation of water vapor. These systems do add water vapor to the air, raising the absolute humidity.

--Bruce Bertrand #talk# 05:25, 21 June 2013 #UTC#

Sorry, Bruce, you must have misunderstood his/point. It is not incorrect. It was not about the evaporative proccess within the unit, but the condensing process which happens to the air flowing over the evaporator coils' exterior. In fact, in moist areas such as the USA Gulf Coast, this dehumidification is more of a comfort factor than temperature reduction. The amount of water condensed from the evaporator coils from the interior space is significant and is disposed thru piping to the exterior. It can amount to gallons per day in large homes and is often recycled into lawn watering or other secondary uses. In extreme cases it CAN lead to drying of mucuous membranes. It is most definitley NOT junk Science. Ken (talk) 15:34, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Do we need two articles?

Do we need two articles - HVAC and Air conditioning? Biscuittin (talk) 19:05, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Absorption cycle

Ammonia still used in heat powered refrigeration systems. Somebody may be knowledgeable enough to add content. 184.77.255.15 (talk) 16:33, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Critics

I also have a feeling this page is a bit promotional and messy. I created a 'critics' section that hopefully will welcome some information about nowadays issues on the topic.

I'm removing this: "Air conditioning may have a positive effect on sufferers of allergies and asthma." since the opposite is also true for the many houses/companies that have a poor maintenance of their systems. Maybe someone can find references for the two sides.

Adding sections inside critics about: -environnement, needs info about ozone depletants still used in some countries -global warming,

I also think a section about energy issues should be created.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jarnelhdkw (talk • contribs) 12:54, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

General cleanup

I'm currently going through the entire article, trying to put everthing into a consistent format. Mostly I didn't remove information, I just re-ordered it and re-organised the sections (e.g. there were 3 different sections on the topic of refrigerants, containing very similar information). My plan is to be done within the next few days. Hopefully that will resolve some of the issues the article is having at the moment. Noggo (talk) 17:02, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

It's a good start. The group of articles related to HVAC has a lot of overlapping and redundant coverage, and also topics that need better coverage. I am developing an info-bar template for HVAC related articles that will at least make it clearer which articles exist. I hope this will make it easier to understand the current setup, and how to improve it. If anybody knows of existing info-bars or lists relating to HVAC, I would appreciate hearing about them, so I don't re-invent the wheel. Reify-tech (talk) 19:07, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

@Reify-tech: you could start with Glossary of HVAC terms. Not an info-bar or a list, but it does have a distilled list of relevant concepts, many of which would be useful to include in an info-bar. VQuakr (talk) 00:29, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Ok, I went through the complete article now and re-arranged the existing information. Feel free to comment and correct :-) Noggo (talk) 13:29, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Noggo! The article has been in need of a good cleanup for a couple of years now. Keep up the good work! N2e (talk) 04:47, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, VQuaker, for the suggestion; I had just come across Glossary of HVAC terms on my own, and have incorporated some of it into the HVAC info-bar template I am developing. I suggest moving this discussion to Talk:HVAC, as that seems like the logical overview article for this entire group of topics. Reify-tech (talk) 18:06, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

---I remved the section on St George's hall being the first air conditioned building. The plaque is technically correct, the air was conditioned...it was heated. It is not exactly what the scope of this article falls to. http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/culture/2002/08/st_georges/air_con.shtml The first modern air conditioned builings were those designed by Carrier, though, I'll have to find a reasonable source to use for those. Cheers — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.65.196.20 (talk) 14:20, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Added GIF

I added a gif to explain how an air conditioner works. It shows the process. Please let me know if it's ok. --131.175.28.132 (talk) 14:54, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Should we add a section on sexism?

According to a number of wikipedia approved authorised sources such as the Telegraph and Jezebel air conditioning is sexist. I feel it only right to help improve the diversity in inclusivity of wikipeida that a section be added to cover this important information. Udoks (talk) 03:22, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

No source has been presented that says "air conditioning is sexist" with a straight face. I attempted a passable rewrite. Thoughts? VQuakr (talk) 01:59, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Off-topic

This section seems off-topic from the overall article. It may be more suited to an article on occupational sexism, not airconditioning (i.e. Occupational sexism). 124.171.32.15 (talk) 08:09, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

I believe hiding it away would be denying the impact and trying to sweep such issues under the rug so to speak. This is a real issues impacting the lives of real women just as much as the proclaimed health impacts this impacts the mental health of women in the workplace. It's my case that this is highly relevant to Wikipedia. Udoks (talk) 18:04, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

It's definitely not appropriate for this article. I agree it's off topic. The content is also based on low-quality sources with click-baity titles. Deli nk (talk) 20:30, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

According to wikipedia's own allowance and their use in other sources they are more than reputable and in now way Click-Baitey titles. They are legitimate Wikipedia sources and such sites have been cited in a number of other articles including one recently cleared by Arbcom Udoks (talk) 21:48, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Nonsense, Arbcom does not clear sources or articles. Deli nk (talk) 20:59, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Nor are these sources breaking any of wikipedia's rules they are secondary sources and from a number of reputable publications Udoks (talk) 08:25, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

• Why is an aspect very clearly focussed on aircon "inappropriate" here? It is very well sourced, despite the doubly inaccurate "Completely based on the musings of one columnist in the Telegraph (not a reliable source on the subject)" claim. As to occupational sexism, then there is no reason why content can't appear in multiple locations. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:25, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

The claims that "air conditioning plays a large role in the inherent sexism and oppression of women in the workplace" and "overuse of airconditioning in offices is purely to benefit men" are ridiculous. They are blatant exaggerations of what the crappy Washington Post and Telegraph articles say, and those two articles are themselves exaggerations of the primary source in Nature that only talks about "miscalculating metabolic rate on female thermal demand". The whole thing is an unseemly inappropriate made-up controversy. Deli nk (talk) 23:21, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

So re-write it in a more neutral fashion. But we have four sources making much the same point, one primary and three commenting upon it. Your "crappy" judgement is entirely OR. It is no reason to blank a whole section, just because you disagree with some conclusions drawn from it. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:44, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

If you are using "OR" to refer to WP:OR, then you are not interpreting that page correctly. My assessment of the Washington Post and Telegraph articles as crappy sensationalist nonsense is not WP:OR, it is my opinion of the quality of those sources. Surely you can see that the editor that wrote "air conditioning plays a large role in the inherent sexism and oppression of women in the workplace" and "overuse of airconditioning in offices is purely to benefit men", which is nowhere included in the cited articles, was the one was adding their own original research into Wikipedia? Deli nk (talk) 12:00, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

This is completely off topic and sensationalistic as written. The linked general interest articles are about office temperature setpoints; whether the air is conditioned or naturally ventilated is not particularly relevant. Somehow that is being extrapolated into "air conditioning is inherently sexist." Devoting an entire freaking section to this stupid clickbait is moronic; a sentence somewhere summarizing the ASHRAE and Nature standards for the disparate comfort ranges for men and women would be appropriate as that appears to have been missing. VQuakr (talk) 01:44, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Stupid Blickbait and moronic nonsense. I'm shocked you so flippantly dismiss the oppression of women by such systems and diminish those shedding light on such injustices like this. All the articles mentioned Air conditioning in some capacity and hiding the inherent sexism of this is just furthering peoples oppression. I posted on the talk page for this article over a week before I made edits. No-one cared then but suddenly it's like I've hit a nest of MRAs wanting to hide this information. How strange that suddenly so many people care about something others have already stated could be equally applicable here. Udoks (talk) 08:23, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

MRA? Anyways, I joined the discussion when I became aware of it. As explained above, there is nothing "inherently sexist" about the subject of this article, air conditioning. VQuakr (talk) 19:35, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

There is when people like you deny the real world impact it has on women's working lives. You're denying women of information and education about how the patriarchy is oppressing them every day. You're contributing to sexism by trying to help hide it or excuse it like this. Udoks (talk) 20:50, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

I didn't deny anything, I explained it to you. Stop with the personal attacks, please. VQuakr (talk) 19:57, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

The discussion of someone's theory that the technology known as air conditioning has been abused by some male managers to oppress female workers (aside from the fact that it is itself sexist – who's to say that some female managers haven't oppressed male workers in exactly the same way? Where are the statistics to show otherwise?) belongs in this article no more than the potential and frequent use of handguns and kitchen knives specifically as instruments of domestic abuse belongs in those articles (where it does not appear). Air conditioning is a technology, just as those are implements, and technology and implements can be used and abused. It can just as easily be argued that companies that fail to provide air conditioning for their employees in hot and humid climates create unpleasant and inefficient work environments. I can tell you this much: my wife does not feel the least bit oppressed by air conditioning systems at her work or at home. General Ization ^Talk 21:30, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Exactly. This proposed content is WP:COATRACK of the highest order. 74.12.92.201 (talk) 03:57, 26 September 2015 (UTC)