The hot and muggy summer days are not something you’re looking forward to. Suppose your air conditioner has been getting on for years. You might wonder what you can do to avoid breakdowns this summer. If you spent a lot of money on repairs.
Preventive AC maintenance: Is it worth it?
You’ve heard that routine preventative maintenance for your air conditioner will help it work more effectively and save energy costs. But is the price genuinely justified? And without a crystal ball, how can those service technicians predict breakdowns?
Consider this: Would you feel comfortable using a car that had been lying idle all winter on a lengthy road trip without checking it out first? If you did, you would run the danger of having a breakdown and a severe headache. You run the same danger by turning on your air conditioner without doing any preventative maintenance on the first warm day.
Preventive AC maintenance reduces problems in 9 ways
A qualified AC repair professional may avoid some of these issues with a comprehensive examination and preventive AC maintenance. You may avoid those dreaded breakdowns on the season’s hottest days with only one servicing call in the spring.
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Power-related difficulties
Before they produce a power outage that destroys your air conditioner, your expert will examine all wiring and electrical connections to look for and repair any damaged or loose connections.
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Worn components
You will quickly find yourself without cooling if a pulley or worn belt splits. But before your system shuts down, your service professional may detect that the belt is worn and replace it.
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Untidy coils
Evaporator coils in your air conditioner absorb heat from the air in your room, while condenser coils dissipate heat outside the structure. The coil cannot transfer heat adequately when it is covered in dirt and filth. As a result, your cooling system has to work more and operate longer. The fan motor and compressor may stop working due to the increasing load.
This problem is resolved, and system failure is avoided by cleaning the coils as part of AC preventative maintenance at the start of the season, and occasionally more often, depending on the air quality where your air conditioner is located.
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Faulty or incorrectly configured controllers
Those new electronic controls are handy and save money on energy bills, but they can be tricky to program. If it’s programmed incorrectly, you might end up with an air conditioner that won’t turn on (or won’t turn off!). Your service technician will test thermostats and other controls to ensure that the correct temperatures are maintained, timer functions are set properly, and batteries are changed.
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Low charge of refrigerant
The material that removes heat and humidity from the air by passing through your air conditioner’s coils is known as refrigerant. Sometimes tiny fractures or holes can form in the refrigerant pipes, allowing refrigerant to escape from the system. When that occurs, your system gradually loses cooling capacity until it is completely unable to cool your room. Your service expert will check the refrigerant charge for your AC’s preventative maintenance. Before you ever notice an issue, he can locate and rectify the leak if he discovers a low refrigerant level.
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Unclean fan blades
Exposure to pollen, smog, and environmental air condition system may take a beating, especially the outside unit’s fan. The fan speed may decrease due to the blades becoming caked in dirt. This might strain the motor and finally lead to failure. This issue may be avoided by cleaning the blades during preventative AC maintenance.
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Airflow issues
Ineffective cooling caused by faulty fan motors, obstructed ducts, clogged filters, and other airflow problems might result in frozen coils and a burned-out compressor. You might then need to start looking for a new air conditioner. Finding and repairing air flow problems might stop a much more costly issue.
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Drain pan and pipe clogging
Condensate lines and drains can clog and overflow due to debris buildup. When it occurs, you’ll have a system failure and water damage. You can end up with severe mould growth if a sluggish water leak continues for a while before you realize it. Avoiding enormous mess is being done by clearing pipes and drains, which is a quick task.
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Cleaning Air Conditioner Filters
Replace or clean your air conditioner’s filters regularly to maintain the effectiveness of your air conditioner, which is the most important maintenance activity. Clogged or unclean filters restrict airflow and dramatically lower a system’s efficiency. In addition, restricted airflow might allow dirt to circumvent the filter and enter the evaporator coil directly, reducing the coil’s ability to absorb heat. Your air conditioner will use 5 to 15% less energy if you replace a filthy, clogged filter with a clean one. Room air conditioners have a filter mounted in the grill that faces into the room.
Reusing some filters is doable, but some need to change. Every month or two throughout the cooling season, clean or replace your air conditioning system’s filters. Using filters more will require regular care if you have a dusty environment and furry home pets.
You only want to visit your AC Maintenance service specialist once or twice a year.
In this instance, it’s unquestionably true that absence makes the heart grow fonder. When your AC repair technician needs to visit once in the spring and once in the fall for routine preventative maintenance, you’ll adore him. You’ll quickly become bored of him if you have to continue contacting him to make repairs all summer. You’ll undoubtedly become weary of spending so much money.
The cost of a service contract for preventative AC maintenance is substantially more than the cost of poor maintenance over the long term (and even in the near term). Grab a copy of our handy booklet, Calculating the Hidden Costs of Poor HVAC Maintenance, to learn more.
Rod’s Colling & Heating offers the best, fastest, and most reliable air conditioning maintenance service. With us, you will always be ready to welcome the summer in a pleasant climate in your home. For more information on this topic, please contact us.
