Your air conditioning requires maintenance just as every other mechanical system or unit in your house does. Luckily, AC maintenance is generally easy to keep up with and undemanding; with remarkably little work and attention, you can greatly reduce the odds of needing any large scale AC repair in the near future.
The first thing to attend to when maintaining your AC system is the filters. It’s necessary to change the filters at a very minimum of once a year, though a better rule is to make an inspection about every 6 months or so and change them if they look dirty. You may need new filters much more often than that. A lot of filters will have recommendations for how long they should last, but it’s difficult to predict their lifespans, as every household has different amounts of dust and debris passing through. Keeping clean filters in your HVAC system will help to reduce the amount of dust and allergens entering your home as well as reduce the strain on the system to keep air flowing. The less strain on your system, the less chance of a component in the system breaking down and requiring professional AC repair.
It’s also important to clean the drain line in the indoor air unit of your AC system. Otherwise, you may find mold and algae growing in the line and backing up into the unit. A simple mixture of bleach and water poured into the line about 3 to 4 times a year is usually all the maintenance required.
For avoiding the need for AC repair, one of the most important maintenance aspects to perform on your AC system is cleaning the cover of your main compressor unit. All you need is a garden hose. The condenser has a metal grating that covers the surface of your outdoor compressor unit. It looks like a radiator in a car. Simply spray it with the garden hose in an up and down motion, dislodging and removing any debris stuck there. This will alleviate any strain placed on the unit which, left unattended, could cause severe damage requiring extensive AC repair. Make sure to perform this simple maintenance at least twice a year.
Last but not least in the list of AC maintenance is the cleaning of your ducts. This is the exception as far as the general ease of maintenance goes, but unfortunately is an absolute necessity. Every HVAC system with ducts requires cleaning to get rid of the dust, allergens, and even organisms such as dust mites that can begin living and breeding in your ducts. The interval of time between each cleaning varies too greatly depending on the household circumstances to be given as a rule, but have your HVAC technician take a look at your ducts whenever he or she comes out for the yearly or 6-month inspection.
