Confidence Level
❄️ Evaporator Coil (INDOOR coil):
- Located inside your home, usually near the furnace or air handler.
- Job: Absorbs heat from the air in your home.
- When warm air from your house blows over this coil, the cold refrigerant inside the coil absorbs the heat, making the air cooler.
- Think of it as a sponge that soaks up heat from your indoor air.
🌬️ Condenser Coil (OUTDOOR coil):
- Located outside your home, in the unit with the fan.
- Job: Releases heat into the outside air.
- The refrigerant, now carrying heat from inside your home, travels outside to the condenser coil. A fan blows outdoor air over the coil to dump the heat into the environment.
- Think of it as a radiator that gets rid of the heat.
🔄 Heat Exchange:
- This is the process of moving heat from one place to another.
- In cooling mode, heat is moved from inside your home to the outside.
- In heating mode (if it's a heat pump), heat is moved from outside to inside.
- The system doesn’t create cold or heat—it just transfers it, using refrigerant and coils.
📦 In summary:
- Evaporator coil = absorbs heat (inside).
- Condenser coil = releases heat (outside).
- Heat exchange = the process of transferring heat from one place to another to cool or heat your home.
- In a heat pump, the coils reverse roles depending on the season:
- In cooling mode: evaporator coil is indoors.
- In heating mode: evaporator coil is outdoors (it pulls heat from outside air).
But in AC mode, yes — evaporator coils are always indoors.