Tips for Air Conditioner Repair to Save You Money

Air Conditioner Not Cooling Enough?

Is there something you can do about your air conditioner not cooling enough or are you stuck with certain areas of your house never getting below 85 degrees in the summer time?

When it comes to needing air conditioner repair, just about every symptom could have several different possible solutions. There’s always multiple explanations as to what could possibly be going on. For that reason before we get started fixing the problem, we need to cover our bases and get to the bottom of what is really causing the problem if your air conditioner is not cooling enough. The first thing you should do is to take an inventory of what is happening.

Take An Inventory Of What Is Going On With Your Air Conditioner

When you think you have a problem with your air conditioner the first thing to do is nothing. That’s right. Don’t touch anything. Just leave it alone and take an inventory of what is happening. Go to the thermostat. Is it set on cooling? What temperature is it set at versus what is the room temperature?

If you know the air conditioner is set to cool, and you can see that it is not getting to the set temperature, you know you have a problem.

What’s working and not working? Is the furnace blowing air inside? If you go over to a register and put your hand in front of it is it blowing air?

Now to the unit outside. Is it blowing air? There’s a little fan on the top or side of your air conditioner. Is that fan blowing or not blowing. If it is blowing air what is the temperature of that air? Hot or cold? If you know those things we can really help figure out what’s going on.

Air Conditioner Coming On, But Not Cooling Well

If your air conditioner is coming on, but not cooling very well, it could be for a variety of reasons including some of the following:

1. Dirty air filter.

2. Low refrigerant

3. Leaky ductwork

4. Dampers are closed

Air Conditioner Not Coming On At All

While this is not an extensive list. There are some things you can check if your air conditioner is not coming on at all.

Check your thermostat to make sure it is set to cool
Check to make sure your filter is not so dirty is is blocking all air flow
Check to make sure the outdoor unit is not being blocked by bushes or trees
Is the outdoor coil completely packed with dirt and debris? – a gentle wash could help
Is your coil iced up? – a frozen coil will cause the air conditioner to malfunction
Did the breaker to your air conditioner trip?

If your air conditioner is not coming on at all. You can first try a reset of the system by turning everything off, waiting a minute, then turning it back on. While you are waiting, changing the filter is a great idea.

Sometimes it can get locked out for a variety of reasons. Turning of and back on can help to reset the unit. However, we have found that if that happens once, it will probably happen again. So, while it is great to get your ac running again, you should probably have a professional come check it out and perform a maintenance cleaning and inspection.

What Is The Temperature Of The Air Coming From The Outdoor Fan?

What difference does it make what the temperature is of the air coming off the outdoor unit fan? When you put your hand over the outdoor fan, the air coming from it is usually hot. What your are feeling is the indoor heat transferred to the outside.

So, if you feel air coming for the outdoor fan and it feels cool instead of warm, that means the hot air is not being taken out of the inside of your house. Under normal circumstances the hot air from inside is rejected outside.

What Is The Solution To Your Air Conditioner Not Cooling Enough?

Let’s say everything appears to be working but the air conditioner is just not quite cooling enough. Usually around 80% of the time it needs maintenance. A dirty coil (that becomes frozen) for example, can cause your air conditioner to not be efficient and to not cool as much as when it is clean. Dirty filters will also cause your air conditioner’s performance to suffer and can cause a multitude of problems relating to efficiency.

When the air is not allowed to circulate properly, your air conditioner will feel like it is not keeping up to the desired temperature especially in the heat of the summer.

The good news is that if your air conditioner is not cooling enough, a simple maintenance visit will more than likely fix the issue. However, we strongly recommend a trained professional to do the maintenance on your air conditioner.

A maintenance visit and the complete cleaning of a cooling system involves high voltage electricity and refrigerants at high pressure. There are also many smaller components that can be damaged in the process of cleaning your air conditioner if you do not know how to do it properly.

So, if your air conditioner is not cooling enough, don’t fear the worst. It is probably something very simple that can be fixed during an air conditioner tune up or maintenance visit.

It is a good idea to get your air conditioner checked out if it is not cooling enough because it is currently using much more electricity that it needs. So it’s already costing you more money than it should, plus you’re not comfortable. Maintenance will help that a lot by cleaning up all of the components.

Check Your Air Conditioner Early In The Season…Especially If You Think It May Have A Problem

In addition to getting an air conditioner maintenance and tune up to address the problem of your air conditioner not cooling enough, we recommend you do some in-house things to keep the cool air in your house. Take an inventory of your house to make sure you are not blocking registers or releasing the conditioned air. One common issue we see every summer is a customer complaining about the duct work sweating near the basement. Water dripping from the duct work isn’t normal and the issue is usually resolved by finding a basement window that got left open and closing it.

If a basement window is left open during the spring, it lets in an endless amount of humidity in your basement. This causes condensation to collect on everything that is cool and will cause things like the duct work to “sweat” and cause water issues in your basement.

Double Check Those Storm Windows

Another thing you can do on your own to make sure your air conditioner can keep the desired temperature is to make sure your storm windows are closed. If your storm windows are left open during the heat of the summer you go from what could be the equivalent of a double or triple pane glass to a single pane window. You don’t notice these things when it is 72 degrees outside, but you do when it is 100 degrees outside which can cause your air conditioner to not cool enough.

We hope this information saves you from needing air conditioner repairs. If after all this your air conditioner is still not cooling well, we hope you will schedule an appointment with us here.