The psychrometric chart is one of the most information-dense diagrams in engineering. To a newcomer it looks like a tangle of curved and slanted lines. To an HVAC engineer it is a map: every point on it is a complete description of a sample of moist air, and every air-conditioning process is a path drawn across it. Once you can read the chart, sizing a cooling coil or diagnosing a condensation problem becomes a matter of plotting two points and reading off the distance between them.
This article explains the handful of properties the chart actually tracks, works a numerical example, and clears up the confusion most people have about relative humidity.
Why this calculation matters
Moist air is a mixture of dry air and water vapour, and almost everything that matters in HVAC depends on how much water that air is carrying. Size a cooling coil using temperature alone and you will under-size it badly, because removing humidity — condensing water out of the air — takes far more energy than simply lowering the temperature.
The chart also predicts condensation. If a surface in your system is colder than the air's dew point, water will form on it. That is how you get dripping ducts, mould behind walls, and fogged-up windows. None of that is visible if you only think in terms of dry-bulb temperature.
The core properties
A psychrometric chart plots dry-bulb temperature on the horizontal axis and humidity ratio on the vertical axis. Every other line on the chart is derived from those two. The properties you need:
Humidity ratio (W) — the mass of water vapour per mass of dry air, in kg/kg or g/kg. This is the honest measure of "how much water." It relates to the vapour partial pressure pv and total pressure P by:
W = 0.622 * pv / (P - pv)
Relative humidity (RH) — the ratio of the actual vapour pressure to the saturation pressure at the same temperature:
RH = pv / psat(T)
RH is what thermostats display, but it is treacherous, because psat changes steeply with temperature. The same air can read 50 % RH in a warm room and 100 % RH after it cools — with no water added or removed.
Dew point — the temperature at which the air becomes saturated if cooled at constant humidity ratio. It is the condensation threshold.
Enthalpy (h) — the total heat content per kg of dry air, sensible plus latent:
h = 1.006 * T + W * (2501 + 1.86 * T) [kJ/kg dry air]
Enthalpy is the property that tells you the true energy load, because it already includes the latent heat tied up in the water vapour.
A worked example
Take a sample of room air at a dry-bulb temperature of 30 °C and 50 % relative humidity, at standard pressure P = 101.3 kPa. Find its humidity ratio, dew point, and enthalpy.
Step 1 — vapour pressure. The saturation pressure of water at 30 °C is about 4.25 kPa. At 50 % RH:
pv = 0.50 x 4.25 = 2.12 kPa
Step 2 — humidity ratio.
W = 0.622 x 2.12 / (101.3 - 2.12) = 0.0133 kg/kg = 13.3 g/kg
Step 3 — dew point. The dew point is the temperature where psat equals 2.12 kPa. That occurs at about 18.4 °C. So if any surface in the room drops below 18.4 °C — a cold water pipe, a single-glazed window — condensation will form on it.
Step 4 — enthalpy.
h = 1.006 x 30 + 0.0133 x (2501 + 1.86 x 30)
h = 30.2 + 34.0 = 64.2 kJ/kg dry air
That single enthalpy number, 64.2 kJ/kg, is what you would compare against the supply-air enthalpy to size a cooling coil. The temperature drop alone would not tell you the latent share.
Common mistakes
Treating relative humidity as an amount of water. It is not. RH is a ratio that depends on temperature. Air at 30 °C and 50 % RH holds far more water than air at 15 °C and 50 % RH. Always convert to humidity ratio before comparing two air states.
Sizing coils on sensible heat only. In humid climates the latent load — the energy to condense moisture — can equal or exceed the sensible load. Skip it and the coil runs but never controls humidity.
Confusing wet-bulb and dew-point temperatures. They are different points on the chart. Wet-bulb relates to evaporative cooling; dew point is the saturation temperature at constant W. They only coincide when the air is already saturated.
Forgetting that the chart is pressure-specific. A standard chart assumes sea-level pressure. At altitude the same dry-bulb and RH give a different humidity ratio, and a sea-level chart will mislead you.
Try the interactive NovaSolver calculator
A paper chart is excellent for intuition but slow for iteration. The psychrometrics calculator on NovaSolver takes the dry-bulb temperature and relative humidity and returns the rest of the air state — humidity ratio, dew point, enthalpy, and specific volume — while plotting the state point on a live psychrometric chart. It removes the chart-reading error while keeping the chart's logic visible.
Related calculators
- Dew point and relative humidity — a focused tool for the condensation-risk question.
- Mixing two air streams — for return-and-fresh-air mixing, a daily HVAC task.
- HVAC cooling load — to translate the air states into an equipment size.
The complete set is in the HVAC tools hub.
Closing note
The psychrometric chart looks intimidating because it carries so much information at once, but the underlying idea is simple: moist air has a temperature and a moisture content, and everything else follows. Learn to think in humidity ratio rather than relative humidity, always check the dew point against your coldest surface, and use enthalpy when energy is the question. Do that and the chart stops being a tangle of lines and becomes the most useful single page in the HVAC engineer's toolkit.
