Checking For Common Air Conditioning Problems

This is the time of year when the temperature begins flirting with triple digits. Let’s hope the electricity grid is ready for everyone’s humming air conditioners.

Of course, keeping your air conditioner running as it should requires more than electricity. There are a few things that can go wrong, and the causes can often be traced to poor installation and inadequate maintenance.

This is why it’s important to call your service professional at Daffan Cooling & Heating to ensure your HVAC system can handle whatever summer throws at it. Let’s take a look at some common problems we encounter when inspecting air conditioning systems:

1. Lack of Maintenance: If you neglect your air filters and coils, they can become dirty, and your air conditioning system will work too hard to cool, putting a burden on the mechanics of the system. This can cause some of the components to fail prematurely.
2. Leaking Refrigerant: If the refrigerant is low, chances are the system is leaking somewhere. The fix isn’t to just add more refrigerant! Have a technician fix the leak, test the system and charge it with the proper amount of refrigerant. It’s important that the charge matches the manufacturer’s specifications for your air conditioning unit. Too much or too little can result in problems with cooling.
3. Blocked Drainage: The condensation needs to drain properly on your unit–a lot of condensation can be produced when the weather turns hot and humid. Have a technician check to make sure it isn’t clogged. Accumulated condensation leads to a lot of nasty problems, including mold, mildew, and rust.
4. Electrical Controls Gone Bad: Poor maintenance, lack of drainage, and exposure to nasty weather can cause corrosion of the wire and terminals connected to the compressor and fan controls. A good inspection will catch these problems early before they result in a shutdown of your unit in the middle of a 100-plus-degree heat wave!