Air Conditioning Services

For the best performance and long life for your air conditioning system, you need to maintain it regularly. Most heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) professionals suggest servicing your air conditioner at least once a year. The ideal time is in the spring, just before you need it the most. During a service visit, a technician typically will do the following: inspect all components of the system, clean the system, check the refrigerant levels, and look for anything that seems out of the ordinary—basically "looking under the hood" and making sure the system is a go for the summer.

Your air conditioning may need attention if you see certain signs. Odd sounds can mean your unit is having some form of mechanical difficulty. If it's putting out the cool but you're still sweating, or if it's just not doing anything and you can't tell it from a big block of ice, well, that's a problem. Also, if you're going to complain about something, complain about how not complaining to your utility company is going to keep your energy bills high. And let's not even get into how awful it smells when your AC is on the fritz. Signs like these would seem to indicate a need for an HVAC technician and not a weekend mechanic.

An air conditioning system that is maintained well will last, on average, 10 to 15 years. But many factors can sway a unit's lifespan one way or the other. If you live in a place that's always hot and your system runs frequently, it is likely to age sooner than a unit in a cooler climate that only gets used sparingly. On the other hand, a unit that's used half the time but in a space where the temperature always seems to flirt with 100° is probably going to need replacement sooner than a unit used lightly. Heat waves and a 100° baseline push A/C life expectancy down.

The most important part of making certain that your A/C is working properly is to keep the air filters clean. This is critical for several reasons, and the first is that it has a direct and substantial effect on the quality of the indoor air. Just as I was given cleansers to use to make certain that the common areas were healthy spaces, so too do the filters you are changing act as immunity boosters for your air conditioning system, preventing it from being filled with kinds of debris and particles that could make it prone to failure. And my big talk about filters has a reason: People don't change them nearly as often as they should.

Boosting your air conditioner's energy efficiency doesn't just save you money. It can also curtail your utility's use of fossil fuels and the emissions that their combustion yields. In my world, that's a good outcome. As a result, I've found four actions that homeowners can take that go a long way toward increasing their air conditioners' energy efficiencies. None of these four is tremendously costly, and they all can be performed in a day. When's the last time you did them? If you haven't done them recently, it could be time to climb back into your attic and check for doe-eyed raccoons or half-finished insulation.

Ducted and ductless air conditioning systems have much in common but function quite differently. A central air conditioning system requires ductwork to properly distribute cooled air to every room in a house. Meanwhile, an air conditioning system that relies on no ductwork can effectively cool any room it occupies, but needs more than one unit—not necessarily in the same room—to cool an entire house. At least, that’s how the system works in many homes. Should I continue?

To choose the proper size for an air conditioning unit, you need to know the factors governing your home's individual setup, such as square footage, ceiling height, and the quality of insulation. If these units are too small, they simply won't be able to provide enough cool air, and if they've been selected on the basis of being too large, there's a real potential for over-cycling. And, as I mentioned few paragraphs back, selecting on the basis of unit size does have a correlation with energy efficiency. An undersized unit will obviously be struggling, and that's not a very efficient setup. But a unit that is too large will also be working inefficiently. An expert can help you avoid this scenario.

There are several easy things that a homeowner can do to maintain an air conditioning system and keep it operating smoothly. One of the most important is changing the air filter regularly; a clean filter is essential for proper airflow and for the efficient operation of the air conditioning unit. Another is to keep the outdoor condenser unit free of debris. If anything is obstructing the airflow to the condenser (like leaves, dirt, or even squirrels), the system will not perform as well. We will also discuss how to check that the thermostat is set correctly, how to clean the air vents, and how to perform a few other easy tasks that can help ensure the system is working properly.

The repair cost for an air conditioner can depend on several things, with the main two being the specific problem that needs fixing and the complexity of the system. If an A/C unit needs something minor repaired, it might run from $100 to $500. If the unit is a bit older or just not generally conducive to being repaired easily (a "poor repair subject"), it might run from $500 to $1,500 (or more) if we factor in the cost of the necessary components and the labor time to install them.