It’s a Scorcher Summer: Will Your Air Conditioner Survive the Heat?

July 18th, 2016

It’s going to be a long hot summer! If you’ve looked at the upcoming weather forecast and gotten nervous about all those days that will clock in at 100°F and above, well, you’re not alone. If you have a durable air conditioning system to manage the temperatures in your house, you can breathe a lot easier, however…

But wait… what if the AC can’t handle all that heat? What if it overheats and breaks down?

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Should There Be Ice on My AC’s Evaporator Coil?

July 11th, 2016

The short answer: No.

The long answer below.

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Is It Better to Run the AC All Day Even When I’m Not Home?

July 4th, 2016

You’ve probably heard this advice before regarding the best way to run an air conditioning system: you should set your air conditioner to stay on all day (at a high temperature, such as the upper 70s) while you’re away from home, rather than leave it off and turn it on only when you get back home. The logic behind this piece of advice is that this 1) makes it easier to quickly cool down the house when you return, and 2) uses less energy, because an air conditioner drains more power at start-up than when running regularly.

But is this actually true?

No, it’s not. We’ll explain below.

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Make Sure You Keep the Area around Your AC’s Condenser Clear

June 27th, 2016

We’ve written before about some of the maintenance jobs that you can do on your own over the summer to take the best care of you air conditioning system. The most important is to always schedule a professional inspection and tune-up for it during the spring. Another is to regularly change the air filters to prevent clogging from harming the air conditioner’s energy efficiency. In this post, we’re going to address another job for the summer that will protect and benefit your AC: keeping the outside condenser clear of debris.

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Why Is My Air Conditioner Having Trouble Keeping the House Cool?

June 20th, 2016

The heat has definitely arrived for the summer, with temperatures during the last week rising over 90°F. The humidity isn’t helping, with relative humidity levels much higher than 60%—the point when the extra moisture in the air makes it much more difficult to stay cool. You’ll certainly be relying on your air conditioning system a great deal to keep your home livable.

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The Importance of Maintenance for Your Commercial Air Conditioning

June 13th, 2016

We’re already in the middle of June, and the official start of summer is next month. When July arrives, we can expect to experience sweltering and humid temperatures. Is the air conditioning system that cools down your commercial business prepared to handle these conditions?

You need to be able to answer with a solid “yes,” because one of the last things you want occurring on the hottest day of the year is for your business to clear out because of a busted AC!

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A Few Details about Your AC’s Air Filter

June 6th, 2016

Two weeks ago, we wrote a blog post to address one of the questions we hear frequently from our customers: “How often do I need to change my air conditioning system’s air filter?” The answer ranges between 1 to 6 months, depending both on your household and the type of filter in the HVAC system.

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Keeping Cool in Summer—While Giving Your AC a Vacation!

May 30th, 2016

The air conditioning system is a big hero around here during the summer months. There’s no better way to stay cool in your home than to have an AC humming away and sending out cooled-down air to the rooms.

But doesn’t your air conditioner deserve it’s own summer vacation now and then? True, it’s a machine and doesn’t have feelings about this—but when you give it short vacations, you’ll end up saving money not only on electrical bills, but on future repair bills for the AC.

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How Often Should I Change the Filter on My Air Conditioner?

May 23rd, 2016

When you arrange for professional maintenance for you air conditioning system (something you must have done every spring), one of the tasks that the technician does is replacing or cleaning the air filter. Make sure you watch how the technician does this job if you don’t know how to do it on your own, since you’ll need to do it yourself during the rest of the summer.

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The Dangers of Freon Leaks in an Air Conditioner

May 16th, 2016

The word Freon refers to a wide range of chemical refrigerants used in air conditioners (as well as other refrigeration equipment) to transfer heat. Freon is actually a trademarked name of DuPont, but it has come to stand for all different refrigerant blends in use today.

The Freon in your air conditioning system is vital for it to work: as it evaporates and condenses, switching between liquid and gaseous states, it absorbs heat from the inside of your house and the exhausts it to the outside. You AC doesn’t use up Freon as it runs; the level of Freon, which is known as the air conditioner’s charge, will remain the same through the life of the system…

…unless there are leaks.

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