MisterMMM.com: Mark's blog

July 15 2011

The climate control system in the car is really a glorified air conditioning system, but whether it's hot and sunny, and muggy and raining, it works in a surprisingly friendly way. The atmostphere in the car is literally cool and dry.

You see, when it's warm, the air-con simply cools the air and makes it like a fridge inside. Admittedly not quite so cold as a fridge but very comforting none-the-less. One side effect though is that the air is simultaneously dried. That is, if you cool warm moist air, then the water vapour condenses out of it!

The first time I realised this was after returning to the car and noticing a pool of liquid under the car. It wasn't a real leak, just the condensation dripping off from the condenser unit. Phew! What a relief when I worked it out :-)

The other side effect of this is that when it rains, the air inside the car is dry, and so removes any condensation build-up on the inside almost immediately.

It should be interesting in the winter when getting into the car in the rain. Normally it mists up until things have dried out a bit, but not ever again. How did I cope without it before!

And why am I looking forward to the winter! The summer is here!