It’s typically achieved by removing additional heat from a liquid refrigerant after it has fully condensed.

Subcooling helps increase the efficiency and effectiveness of Air conditioning systems by ensuring that the refrigerant remains in its liquid state as it enters the expansion device, which can improve system performance and reliability.

Well, let’s all start with the most common complaints we get in the A/C business.

Does any of this sound familiar? Let us start by saying that any of the above issues might be caused by other things, from the age of the system or the refrigerant charge, to the airflow in your home or business, or something else entirely. But if you have a newer system in your home or business, and you are still having one or more of these issues, read on! Let’s take a few minutes to learn some things about air conditioning you may not already know. We promise, it’ll be worth it!

A/C Lesson #1: Once the outdoor temperature climbs above 85°F, A/C systems begin to lose cooling capacity.

Similar to how their cousin the heat pump loses heating capacity as the outdoor temperature gets colder, A/C systems lose cooling capacity as the outdoor temperature gets warmer. As the outdoor temperature continues to climb, the cooling performance of your A/C system unfortunately continues to decrease. Let’s look at a standard 15 SEER condensing unit as an example. At 80°-90°F, the unit is rated to perform at a 15 SEER level. However, if the outdoor temperature climbs to the 100°-110°F range, your unit will only perform like a unit with a 12-13 SEER rating!

You might be wondering, what causes this? Well, as the compressor discharges the refrigerant into the outdoor condenser coil, the refrigerant is in a superheated vapor state. It then passes through the condenser coil and is cooled by the outside air the condenser fan is moving across the coil. The refrigerant then changes from a vapor state to a liquid state before it exits the condenser coil via the liquid line (this is the smaller of the two pipes you may have noticed coming out of your outdoor unit).

So what happens if it’s 90°F or hotter outside? If the outdoor temperature is 90°F this means the condensing temperatures are even higher. Depending on your actual unit’s age, SEER rating, etc., at an outdoor temperature of 90°F the liquid refrigerant temperature will on average be anywhere between 10°-20°F warmer than the outside air. That puts your unit’s liquid refrigerant around 100°-110°F. With the liquid refrigerant at this temperature, as it enters the evaporator coil (part of your indoor unit) it’s not able to remove as much heat from your home or business. Hence, you experience a loss of cooling capacity!

This only gets worse as the outdoor air temperature rises, unfortunately. The hotter the outdoor temperature, the hotter the liquid refrigerant temperature. This affects not only your unit’s cooling performance, but also affects the dehumidification of your home or business. Ever notice on a really hot day that your A/C runs a lot more, but your home or business still feels humid inside? Once again, this is all because of the liquid refrigerant being too hot.

A/C Lesson #2: dew point matters.

Let’s say the dew point of the air inside your home or business is 65°F. What does that actually mean? Well, it means water vapor will condense out of the air on any object that’s 65°F or colder. The colder the object is, the more water vapor that will condense on it. This is why you might notice a lot of condensation forming on the outside of a glass of ice water on a high dew point day. The water in the glass is below the current dew point of the ambient air, so water in the air condenses on the sides of the glass.

But why does my house or business feel so humid on a hot day with a high dew point, despite my A/C running? We’ve already learned that in this scenario the liquid refrigerant coming out of your unit’s condenser coil has too much heat left in it as it passes through the evaporator coil of your indoor unit. This means the evaporator coil inside your home or business can’t get as cold as it could on a day with a lower outdoor temperature. In our example, the evaporator coil temperature might be around 55°-65°F, so water (AKA humidity) will condense on the coil because it’s below the 65F dew point. However, a new issue pops up, with the performance of the evaporator coil. At this point, only the first half of the evaporator coil after the TXV outlet is in the 55°-65°F range. After that, most of the cool liquid/vapor mix from the TXV has already absorbed as much heat as it can. Only the remaining cool vapor (that won’t really absorb more heat) passes through the remainder of the coil, and it increases in temperature as the warm air from inside your home or business passes across the coil.

This means that on a hot day you’re really only using about half, or possibly 3/4 at most, of the evaporator coil to actually cool your home or business. After that point, the coil isn’t absorbing any more heat from your indoor air. The refrigerant has removed all of the heat it possibly can from your indoor air, given the temperature it’s entered the TXV. Now your system’s lost cooling and dehumidification capacity. Yikes!

Putting It All Together: we’ve learned that the amount of heat left in your A/C unit’s liquid refrigerant, as it leaves the outdoor condenser coil and enters the indoor evaporator coil, determines how well your system will cool and dehumidify your home or business.

So you might be wondering, why haven’t A/C manufacturers built something to change this? Well, they are too limited in what they can design and bring to market. The only way large manufacturers can combat the issues we’ve talked about is by increasing the size of the outdoor condensing coils. This is why you may have noticed that, as A/C systems have evolved from 10 SEER units to 20 SEER units, the units have become larger and larger. Larger condenser coils and even larger evaporator coils have been the mainstream manufacturers’ solution to improving A/C function for your home or business. But no matter how large your condenser coil is, these manufacturers can never get the liquid temperature below the outdoor air temperature. In fact, even the high-level SEER units still run liquid temperatures on average 5°-7°F above the outdoor air temperature.

What’s the solution, you might be asking? Subcooling the liquid after the condenser coil.

Using ATD’s engineered and patented liquid subcooling device, we’re able to drop the temperature of the existing liquid refrigerant by up to 25°-70°F, depending on the specific model of Subcooler installed. For example, in testing we saw the Stage 1 Subcooler drop the liquid refrigerant temperature by 30°-40°F.

We learned earlier that a 90°F outdoor temperature raises the temperature of the liquid refrigerant exiting the condenser on average 10°F, resulting in a liquid refrigerant temperature of 100°F. When connected to our (Stage 1, for example) Subcooler, the liquid refrigerant enters the Subcooler inlet and then the Subcooler begins to remove the extra heat that still remains in the liquid refrigerant. The liquid refrigerant is now at a much lower 70°F, for example, as it exits the Subcooler.

You might be thinking, “Big deal, the liquid is now 70°F or colder.” Indeed, this is a very big deal! Recall from our earlier lesson that as the outdoor temperature rises, so does the liquid refrigerant temperature. Bear with us here as we do some simple math to see exactly why this is a big deal.

Continuing with our Stage 1 Subcooler example, the liquid refrigerant is now at 70°F as it enters your indoor evaporator coil. We already learned that without ATD’s Stage 1 Subcooler, the liquid refrigerant would be on average 30°F warmer than that with a 90°F outdoor air temperature. Are you starting to see why this is such a big deal?

Let’s break it down:

70°F liquid refrigerant, if it’s on average 10°F warmer than the outdoor air temperature, would be equivalent to running your A/C system when the outdoor temperature is 60°F. 60°F outdoor air temperature + 10°F warmer liquid refrigerant exiting the condenser coil = 70°F.

Of course, we don’t generally run our A/C system when the outdoor temperature is 60°F. But, imagine how effectively and efficiently it would cool your home or business if you did. This is our “ah-hah” moment!

Advanced Thermodynamics, Inc. has been able to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of your existing A/C system with our multi-stage Subcoolers, without the use of additional electricity or any mechanical moving parts!

Stage 1 – “The Iceman”
Stage 2 – “The Eliminator”
Stage 3 – “The Dominator”

With such cool (wink) devices, we had to give them cool names!

We’ve talked a lot about The Iceman, so let’s look at our Stage 2 Subcooler, The Eliminator. This model can drop liquid refrigerant temperatures by as much as 50°-60°F! Sticking with our 90°F outdoor temperature example, the 100°F liquid refrigerant is now exiting The Eliminator somewhere in the 40°-50°F range. This means your A/C system is now operating as though the outdoor temperature was in the 40°F range. Imagine how easily your A/C system would cool your home or business if it were only 40°F outside!

We were very happy with the impressive performance of The Iceman and The Eliminator, but we wanted more. We wanted a unit that could stand up to the absolute hottest and most humid weather, so we built our Stage 3 Subcooler, The Dominator. Our Founder and CEO, Tom, has three of our Stage 3 Subcoolers installed in his own home. His wife now tells him all the time that she’s freezing even on the hottest of summer days. Tom, always wanting the biggest and best, fails to see the problem haha!

The Dominator can drop the liquid refrigerant temperature by up to 70°F (we actually hit a record during testing last summer of a 79°F temperature drop). This exceeded even our expectations! The 100°F liquid refrigerant is now exiting The Dominator in the 30°-40°F range. Now it’s like running your A/C system with an outdoor temperature of 30°-40°F. Just imagine the cooling capacity of your system!

Let’s not forget about the large increase in dehumidification! Now that the liquid refrigerant is entering your indoor evaporator coil so much colder than it would without one of our Subcoolers, the evaporator coil’s temperature will be well below the dew point of the indoor air. This means that your existing indoor unit is able to condense a much larger volume of water vapor, drying the air in your home or business.

One of the most common pieces of feedback we’ve received about customer test units is that customers are raising their thermostat setting when it’s warm outside. Why would they do this? With one of our Subcoolers installed, the indoor air is now much drier and therefore feels cooler on your skin. Customers who used to set their thermostats to 68°F are now setting them to 72°F and telling us the indoor air actually feels cooler than it did with the thermostats set at 68°F! If they used to set their thermostats to 70°F, they’re now setting them at 74°-75°F and they’re still more comfortable than they were before installing one of our Subcoolers. Incredible! This may be one of the only times in your life you’ll be glad to raise your thermostat!!

Are there any added benefits? We know that our Subcoolers resulting in cooler and drier indoor air, making us more comfortable even on the hottest of days, but there are other tangible benefits you may not have thought of. A more efficient and effective A/C system results in less compressor run time. Less compressor run time means less electricity usage. I think we all agree that using less electricity will directly reduce your electric bill.

If you’ve gotten this far, we know this has been a lot to read! But, our hope is that you’ve learned more about your home or business A/C system, and how our Subcoolers will revolutionize your indoor comfort while simultaneously reducing your home or business electricity consumption. If you still have questions, please contact us using the Contact menu at the top of the page.

Con’s

#1 Up front cost to purchase with installation.

Yes, we try to keep the price as low as we can.

My answer to this is, Ask yourself this:

How much is your Summertime comfort worth? ( the cost of this unit is the same as replacing one of the components in your HVAC system )

Depending on what Stage Unit you buy, this unit overtime will pay for itself in electricity savings, we have certainly seen this on the test models we have installed for people.

#4 Due to the size of Stage 3 required to reach the levels of cooling capacity, this unit is only able to fit in certain applications.

Stage #1 & 2 can fit on closet mounted units, and also attic units.

#5 Depending on where the AC line set runs into the evaporator coil, a few feet of additional piping may required to pipe this into the system, Installation is explained and shown in our installe’s video’s.

#7  Must Be Installed By An HVAC Professional.  ( this is not a DIY project, home owners though can buy directly from us, you must have your local AC Guy install this device )