My 2nd technologically ignorant question of the day

[soleft]

Are air conditioners supposed to get really hot on the outside?

[tjdee]

1. Yes--if you mean out the back?

I learned that when I turned on the air conditioner sitting on a table and it got friggin hot in there.

Um, but I guess if you meant 'out the back' you'd have said that and not 'outside'.

Do you mean hot to the touch? I don't think so.

[soleft]

3. Well, outside is out the back.

I was just outside on the ledge and I felt the back of the AC and it's pretty hot. I used to have central air and this is the first summer I've had AC units in the windows. Hope it doesn't melt my bike which is outside under a plastic tarp.

[tjdee]

4. I misunderstood, LOL.

I was thinking outside the unit as opposed to outside the house.

Duh!

[Salviati]

2. Yes

They take all the heat out of the area to be cooled, and pump it over to the other side, also including a little heat that it generates itself in it's operation. Same with the coils on the back of a refridgerator.

[Orsino]

6. Yep. That's the heat from inside...

...being pumped out, plus the thermodynamically inevitable overhead.

[RC]

5. Air conditioners are in reality heat pumps

They pump the heat from inside a space or room to the outside, thereby cooling the inside space. So, yes the back side gets quite warm.

[MindPilot]

7. yes.

The outside part--not the housing or case--but the part that is outside the building contains the condenser. That contains the refrigerant in a gaseous state under high pressure. The heat is pulled from it by the fan until it turns back to a liquid. So yes, you're dealing with something that will have a surface temperature somewhere in the 120 degree range.

Then the refrigerant is returned to the inside part--the evaporator--which by suddenly reducing its pressure flashes the refrigerant to a vapor and sucks heat from the inside air making it appear cold. Another fan blows that cold air into the room.

Then the gaseous refrigerant goes into the compressor which pushes it back out to the condenser to start the cycle all over.

Quite ingenious really.

edit: typos