Heating & Cooling Loads4 / 13
Sensible vs Latent Loads
Heating/cooling the air vs dehumidifying.
9 min read · Jacob Willis, Net Zero Lead · Last reviewed July 2026
A room might feel uncomfortable at 21 °C and 70% humidity even though the temperature is correct. The problem is latent load: the water vapour in the air. To design an efficient HVAC system, you must control both sensible (temperature) and latent (humidity) loads. They require different strategies.
In this lesson
- 01Sensible cooling and heating
- 02Latent cooling (dehumidification)
- 03Sensible vs latent ratio
- 04Control strategies for humidity
- 05The psychrometric chart: how engineers visualize it
- 06Energy implications
- 07Sources and further reading