Understanding The Impact Of A Dirty Air Conditioner And How Maintenance Fixes It

Is your air conditioner dirty? How would you know? Furthermore, do you know and understand the impact of a dirty air conditioner on your home overall? Here are all of the problems a dirty air conditioner creates, and how air conditioning maintenance services can fix those problems. 

Hot Air Becomes Trapped

Most A/C systems pull the hot air from your home and circulate it through the system to cool it. With some systems, like heat pumps, the hot air is forced outside your home. If your system is caked with mud, dirt, grass clippings, leaves, etc., the hot air cannot leave. It becomes trapped inside the box outside your home, and this forces the system to work even harder to try and remove the hot air. Working harder means that the system will overwork itself, and then it will break down. 

Dirty Condenser Coils Cannot Properly Function

The efficiency of your air conditioner depends on how hard the condenser coils have to work. Clean condenser coils and their attached fan have far fewer problems operating at their maximum efficiency. Dirty coils cannot transfer air from your home to the condensing system. A clogged fan cannot spit the hot air out, and then your home constantly feels hotter than it should. 

Clogged Evaporator Problems

Dirt in the evaporator means that the air drawn over the evaporator coil will not initiate the evaporator coil to evaporate the refrigerant that cools the air sent back into your home. Dirt clogs in this coil will also prevent refrigerant from moving through the coil as it should. Trapped refrigerant and a lack of evaporation force system malfunctions to occur. 

Maintenance Services Clean and Clear All of the Above

Your HVAC technician is not just coming to your home to see if everything is still working. He/she is not just checking the condition of the parts of your air conditioner and then putting your air conditioner "to bed" for the winter. He/she is cleaning all of the parts that are caked or clogged with dirt, removing residues that make your system work too hard, and correctly diagnosing issues that may prove costly in the near future. This is why it is so important to have these maintenance services performed at least once a year if you live in the northern half of the U.S., and twice a year if you live in the southern half of the U.S. (where you are more likely to run your air conditioner several months longer than your northern neighbors).