5 Things You Can Do To Help Your AC This Summer

5 Things You Can Do To Help Your AC This Summer

It’s inevitable every year, it’s just a matter of time before the first wave of heat hits us here in Red Deer. We see a few waves of temperatures hit us at different levels of intensity which forces customers to decide whether they’re going to stick it out a little while longer without repairing their AC or go ahead and call for a repair.
If you don’t have your AC regularly checked by Red Deer Heating and AC Services, now is the time to call us to inspect and tune-up your home’s AC.
Here are some things that you can do to give your AC system a good chance of performing better.

1. Check the batteries in your thermostat.

First, let’s check the batteries in your thermostat. Double-A batteries are the most common ones that you’re going to find in your thermostat. You can usually pull the front plastic cover off its base to see the batteries.

If you haven’t changed them in a year or two, go ahead and do that now. If you see any green corrosion on the batteries, that would be another indicator to change your batteries.

2. Change your air filters.

You may have one or two filters around your house that need to be changed regularly. Doing this allows your system to take a big deep breath-in before breathing-out to give you every bit of air that it’s capable of giving you.
Plus, if your filters aren’t perfectly white, it’s time to change them anyways.

Nobody wants to breathe that brown stuff that gets caught in the filters anyways.

3. Clean your outdoor coil.

You may not know this but your outdoor coil acts like a filter of sorts. It breathes in through the fins and the coil on the side of the unit catching all kinds of pollen and dust. The fan on top of the AC discharges that air to remove the heat from your house.
Taking a hose and rinsing off those coils before the summer hits is an excellent way to prepare your AC.

And for all our DIY’ers, please don’t use a pressure washer to complete this task.

Those fins are pretty rigid and won’t bend unless you apply a lot of pressure to them.

You can bend them pretty easily by using your finger and pushing against it, so use less force than that.
Remember, we’re just trying to knock off the dust.

4. Cut back the shrubs around the AC unit.

Part of letting your outdoor AC unit breathe means cutting your shrubs back at least 12 inches from the side of the unit. If you could, do your service technician a big favor and remove them altogether.

Nobody wants to work with thorns from a rosebush poking into their shoulders, back, and face while working on your AC unit. If you must have them though, cutting your shrubs back allows the air to enter through the sides of your AC to be discharged through the top of it, which removes the heat from your house.

5. Look for a temperature split of 18 to 24 degrees.

Check your temperature split. If you have some sort of temperature measuring device like a meat thermometer, check the temperature difference between the air entering your system and the air coming out of your supply registers.
If you know where your filter is, that you change out every couple of months, that’s where you could take your first reading.
The second reading you take is that one of the supply registers. A bedroom is fine for this. Subtract the second reading from the first one.
What you’re looking for is a difference between 18 and 24 degrees. If you’re not seeing these types of numbers, it might be time to schedule a service call from Red Deer Heating and AC.
Anything lower than 18 degrees and you risk high electric bills from a system that’s running too long. Anything higher than 24 degrees and you risk a system that could freeze up and stop blowing air altogether.
All the condensation that naturally occurs at the indoor unit can freeze up, then when the AC shuts off the ice rapidly melts causing water damage to the system or causing damage to your floors or ceiling.
You can do these five things to prepare your AC for the summer. They’re pretty simple checks that you can do as a homeowner to give your AC system a good head start going into the summer.
And for anything else, call us here at Red Deer Heating and AC.