The dog days of summer are here. Although this saying is based on Greek and Roman constellations—when the star pattern Sirius the Dog is on the horizon—most of us think of it as a time when dogs are panting on porches next to people trying to fan themselves off. Of course, if you have a working air conditioning system in your home, you won’t need to be fanning yourself on the porch, and your dog will probably not need to pant so much.
But August’s dog days can sometimes put air conditioners out of commission. Most ACs run steadily from June onward, so all the accumulated work stress can lead to an air conditioner that’s at a much higher risk of malfunctioning in August. Below are some air conditioning problems to watch for during this late summer period of high heat and humidity. You can call us for the professional air conditioning service in Haughton, LA, that will get your AC back on track.
Rattle and whir—an air conditioning system can really turn into a major piece of noise pollution, can’t it? If you dread having to turn on your AC because it sends a racket through your home and disturbs the summer peace, you may have to make a decision about replacing it.
Have you ever stopped to listen to your home’s air conditioning system as it runs? We recommend doing this occasionally, since it can sometimes identify when there’s a malfunction in it (you don’t want to hear grinding or hissing noises, for example). One sound you’ll occasionally hear that isn’t an indication of a problem is dripping water. Your air conditioner doesn’t use water to cool down the air—only special evaporative coolers do that—but water is a byproduct of how it works.
“What, another thing I need to get cleaned regularly?” We know that keeping track of various maintenance tasks for a house can feel daunting, but duct cleaning is actually one that’s easy to have scheduled and completed. You don’t need it done every year, but it’s worth arranging for every 3 to 5 years. So if you’ve never had air duct cleaning done for your home before, you’re probably overdue for it.
Your air conditioning system works hard on hot days—that’s what it’s there for, after all! But even an air conditioning system can get too hot, causing its motors to trip the circuit breaker to the system. You can reset the breaker, but it’s likely to happen again and again and again. Not an inconvenience you want during the summer!
If you’ve lived through a summer here in Louisiana, you understand that humidity is a serious problem for comfort. Even mild warm days can feel like a blistering 90°F when the relative humidity level is high enough. The reason for this is that the higher moisture levels in the air trap heat inside the body, making it harder for it to release the excess heat through perspiring. Humidity causes other troubles as well: encouraging mold and mildew growth and causing water damage to surfaces.
If you looked up the word refrigerant in a dictionary, you’d probably come across a definition like this:
You’ve had your current air conditioner for more than ten years. Maybe more than fifteen or twenty. It’s just not working as well as it used to, or it’s started to run up astronomical bills each summer. Maybe it’s breaking down frequently and needs repair to keep it hobbling on. Or you might feel it’s time to retire it before all of those things start happening.
We always encourage our customers to schedule spring air conditioning maintenance with us. We don’t want to be a pest about this, but it is extremely important to have these inspections and tune-ups done each year before the big summer heat and humidity arrives. There are many reasons why air conditioning maintenance is such an important job, and we’re going to look at a few specific problems an AC that doesn’t have spring maintenance done might run into. 
