How does an air conditioner, heat pump, furnace and thermostat work?
Goodman has succinct explanations with good illustrations on their “Heating & Cooling 101” tab. The howstuffworks articles on air conditioning, heat pumps, heating and cooling system basics, and thermostats go into more depth. Their short video on air conditioning is excellent. Unfortunately some of their links lead to energy efficiency sales material that advocates the use of cooling hours as a method of calculating energy savings. I’ve commented on that issue here and here. Wikipedia also has some interesting articles that cover the topic rather broadly here, here, and here. And of course I cover a myriad of topics on this site, including my HVAC 101 articles which can be best found by looking at the site map.
