Summer is in full swing. It is HOT and only forecasted to get hotter. To cool off here in the south, we go to the lake, play in the sprinkler, and eat our weight in ice pops, but when the humidity and the heat both rise to unbearable levels, all we want to do is stay inside and enjoy the wonderful cool air from our air conditioners. UNTIL – that cold air is no longer pouring out of the vents! It’s every homeowners’ worst summer nightmare. Did you know that if you don’t regularly maintain your A/C, it might bust on you, just when you need it the most?
The General Rule:
To avoid a mid-summer A/C catastrophe, change your air filters every month and get your A/C serviced twice per year (or at a minimum once per year).
And Here’s Why:
Your air conditioner is made of two main components; the condenser, which is the outside unit, and the evaporator coil, which is usually located in a metal box inside the house. Your body’s ability to cool off is greatly reduced when the air is humid, so your A/C functions not only to suck the hot air out of your house and pump cool air in, it also dehumidifies that air. Everyone knows about their thermostat and the filter, but there are a lot of other working parts inside those sealed metal boxes that can break if you don’t take care of them. See the below infographic from Energy.gov for a visual of how your A/C works.
Your A/C sucks air in through the filter, and the A-frame-looking evaporator coils remove heat and humidity from that air using a refrigerant called Freon. When you don’t change your filter, you’re blocking the A/C’s ability to suck that air in and cool it. Imagine a laptop computer. If you were to hold your hand over the fan for a few minutes, your computer would overheat and shut off, because you’ve prevented it from being able to cool itself down. The filter for your A/C is similar and you don’t want to get it too dirty.
If you don’t have a filter in place (a huge no-no, but we know it happens), all the dust, dirt, and dog hair get sucked in to the intake and then build up on that evaporator coil. One of the things a service technician will do when they come out is clean off the evaporator coils. If you haven’t had your A/C serviced in a few years (or ever), there should be a noticeable difference after it gets a tune up. There is also the added benefit of electric bill savings, because your unit doesn’t have to work as hard.
Regular Maintenance
Most local heat and air companies offer a membership plan or service agreement in which you pay for regularly scheduled maintenance on your unit. At First Choice Home Builders, we use A-1 Hobbs Inc for all of our new homes. On their service agreement they state “For each $1 spent in maintenance, you can save as much as $3 in potential repairs”. Their service agreement is $238 annually, and while the pricing for a replacement air conditioner varies by unit size, they can range anywhere from $1500 - $2000, which is much more than the cost of an annual service agreement.
There are quite a few perks to signing up for a service agreement, including: two performance tune-ups per year (one heating/ one cooling), 24-hour priority service, and discounts on replacement parts. We think that priority service is one of the best parts, because that means when your A/C goes out on the hottest day of the year, your unit will get priority over someone who calls that doesn’t have a service agreement.
See the below tips from Energy.gov on other things you can do to maintain your air conditioner.
When Your A/C Stops Working
Most people don’t know that your air conditioning unit is only rated by the manufacturer to cool your house to 15 degrees less than the temperature outside. A lot can go wrong with your A/C, if your unit is working on overdrive, such as too much build-up on the evaporator coils or a Freon leak causing the unit to turn into a block of ice. Regardless of your issue, you should call your local service company right away.
Other Ways to Stay Cool and Lower Your Cooling Costs:
Close your blinds – sun through the windows heats your home
Close the curtains – don’t let that cool air escape
Turn on your ceiling fans – circulate the air throughout the house
Program your thermostat – don’t make your A/C work on overdrive
Don’t heat your home with appliances – grill outside instead
If you learn anything from this blog post, it should be to get your unit serviced in March and October in the off-season when your local heating and cooling companies are not swamped. When it’s 100 degrees and your A/C goes out, you’ll pay almost anything to get it fixed, so changing your filters every month and scheduling regular service in the off season is your best bet for staying cool all summer long.
First Choice Home Builders is a local homebuilder in the Columbia County and Greater Augusta, GA area specializing in custom, semi-custom, and build-on-your-lot homes. Currently the company is building homes in the Riverwood Plantation, Whispering Pines, and Rhodes Farm Master Planned Communities. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Houzz to see current projects.
