Now that spring is here- it is time to start thinking about turning on the air conditioner for the first time. I know to some you might be thinking ‘it is too soon!’ but more often than not, people will wait until it is too late to find out the air conditioner isn’t working. And by then everyone else has also turned their unit on to find it not working and the queue is long to get a technician out and see what is going on.
Our advice is two-fold. The first would be go ahead and turn the air conditioning on once the outdoor temperature has hit 80 degrees or so outside, just to make sure it kicks on. All you need to do is set the indoor temperature about 3 degrees lower than the current indoor temperature and see that the unit comes on and is able to cool.
The second would be to think back to the last time you had the air conditioner maintained. Was it last spring? Longer? While heaters can be much more forgiving in the lack of maintenance; air conditioning is like your mother-in-law that one year you forgot her birthday. She never forgets. The outdoor air conditioner is beaten up by the elements outside. If you have trees or shrubs nearby there is a good chance debris has fallen down into the air conditioner and needs to be removed. There is also the outdoor cooling coil. All summer long air pulls across this coil to help pre-cool the refrigerant (Freon) before running it back through the system again. But along with air comes dust, dirt, pollen, dog fur, and anything else that can get stuck against that coil causing blockage. Blockage makes the unit to work harder which can spike energy costs. This can also cause overheating of the condenser fan motor or compressor. Then you are looking at some pretty costly repairs, all because you decided you didn’t need to have the a/c maintained this year.
Why wait? Give us a call and we can come out and do a maintenance on your air conditioner before the weather really turns hot. We are currently taking all precautions to protect our technicians and customers by limiting face-to-face interaction and time in the home. If you don’t need a filter replaced and aren’t having any airflow or air quality issues, we don’t even need to enter the home at all. Please feel free to call 916-481-0658 and set up instructions on yard access.