glossary

Specialized housing for the air flow.

Pipes or channels that carry air throughout your home.

An HVAC component that uses outside air, under suitable climate conditions, to reduce required mechanical cooling. When the outside air’s enthalpy is less than the required supply air during a call for cooling, an economizer allows a building’s mechanical ventilation system to use up to the maximum amount of outside air.

A program developed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in order to reduce the nation’s energy consumption. ENERGY STAR® -qualified heating equipment can be up to 15 percent more efficient than standard models. ENERGY STAR® -qualified cooling equipment can be up to 7 percent more efficient than minimum-standard equipment.

A component in the basic refrigeration cycle that ejects or removes heat from the system. The condenser is the hot side of an air conditioner or heat pump. Condensers are heat exchangers, and can transfer heat to air or to an intermediate fluid (such as water or an aqueous solution of ethylene glycol) to carry heat to a distant sink, such as ground (earth sink), a body of water, or air (as with cooling towers).