Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is the technology of indoor and vehicular environmental comfort. Its goal is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality.
HVAC is an important part of residential structures such as single family homes, apartment buildings, hotels and senior living facilities, medium to large industrial and office buildings such as skyscrapers and hospitals, vehicles such as cars, trains, airplanes, ships and submarines, and in marine environments, where safe and healthy building conditions are regulated with respect to temperature and humidity, using fresh air from outdoors.
Classification
The major classification of HVAC systems is central system and decentralized or local system. Types of a system depend on addressing the primary equipment location to be centralized as conditioning entire building as a whole unit or decentralized as separately conditioning a specific zone as part of a building. Therefore, the air and water distribution system should be designed based on system classification and the location of primary equipment. The criteria as mentioned above should also be applied in selecting between two systems.