Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning—often grouped together and abbreviated as HVAC—is an essential feature in modern homes, businesses, and vehicles. Humans have colonized almost every corner of the globe, and tend to work out ways of controlling the environment in which they live and work to suit the comfort parameters of the human body.
Technological innovation drives environmental control forwards: making HVAC solutions more efficient, more conducive to comfort, and more adaptable. Environmental control is one of the defining features of human external intelligence. Since the first prehistoric people insulated their homes with animal hides, human beings have shaped their habitation with environmental control in mind.
Here are some recent innovations in HVAC that should fascinate both the technologically minded and the thrifty homeowner alike.
Smart Thermostats
Humanity is contributing to global warming on a huge scale. HVAC innovators are finding climate-friendly solutions to environmental control problems. Traditionally, HVAC systems used a great deal of power. Smart thermostats might well make heating or cooling your home far more environmentally friendly.
Smart thermostats collect data about your power usage, heating schedule, and preferred temperature and use mathematical formulae to calculate the most comfortable, most environmentally friendly HVAC plan for you. Not only that, but they regularly save homeowners a whole bucketload of cash.
Movement-Activated Environmental Controls
Traditionally, air conditioning units operate from the moment they are switched on to the moment they are turned off. Whilst this sounds pretty reasonable, it actually wastes a great deal of energy. Air conditioning is worse than useless if it is cooling down a room that contains no people. Motion-activated HVAC systems sense when a person enters a room before altering the environment. These systems are good for the planet and have the potential to cut down on domestic energy bills. The downside is that they are relatively complicated. Call a local HVAC Grand Prairie TX specialist if you want to set one of these systems up.
Geothermal Heat Pumps
Geothermal heat pumps have been around since the 1940s, but they have only recently started to be used in domestic HVAC systems. Solar energy stored in the Earth’s crust manifests itself as low-grade geothermal energy: heat, in other words. Heat-collecting pipes are installed just under the ground. These are then filled with water and antifreeze and circulated into the HVAC system using a compressor. Not only can these systems extract heat from the ground to warm a home, but they can also cool a home by extracting thermal energy from inside and “sinking” it down into the earth. The only power used is a small amount used to run the compressor.
DEVap
Desiccant-enhanced eVaporative cooling is cutting-edge technology that will find its way into HVAC systems in the near future. DEVap systems transform humid external air into dry, cool air using a desiccant (like silica) that removes humidity, and an evaporative cooler (that uses water to trap the heat in air before evaporating it). It is likely to reduce cooling costs in large buildings by up to 80 percent.