Hydronic Air Conditioning Service

The main component in a hydronic cooling system is the chiller which removes heat from the water (thereby chilling the water) in a building’s re-circulating cooling distribution. The chiller uses a refrigerant vapour expansion/compression (RVEC) system to enable the removal of heat from a heat exchanger (evaporator) that contains the water from the building’s cooling system.

A  RVEC cycle has four basic components; an evaporator, compressor, condenser, and thermal expansion control device. The evaporator (which is part of the heat exchanger containing the cooling water), absorbs heat through the process of expanding the refrigerant flowing within it. The refrigerant then flows to a compressor which compresses it causing it to condense in the condenser and release the heat it removed from the chiller. The condensed liquid refrigerant then flows through the expansion control device which controls the flow of the refrigerant into the evaporator. The whole system is controlled by the system controller.
Heat removal from the condenser can be accomplished in different ways:

• Air-Cooled Systems - use fans set in parallel usually on a rooftop to expel the heat
• Water-Cooled Systems - uses a cooling tower that employs a water mist to enhance heat rejection.

• Hydronic AC systems centralize the task of cooling, allowing greater efficiency over decentralized (packaged) systems
• A single high efficiency unit has lower operational costs due to reduced maintenance cost and time, with a lifecycle 2 to 3 times greater than an average decentralized system
• Hydronic AC systems are easily adaptable through the use of direct digital controls, to monitor indoor/outdoor climate conditions and space occupancy, and to adjust system settings for maximum efficiency