Heating/AC Maintenance

This is a topic that we hit on several times per year and I don't think it's ever a bad idea to keep it fresh. Maintenance on your heating or air conditioning system is key to being aware and prepared. The major benefits is that many issues developing in a system can be caught and rectified before they cause you to be without and scrambling for service.

This time of year (winter) the number one reoccurring issue that we see is melted wires and disconnects. This is because heating equipment is working harder and harder and especially with heat pumps, this is when the equipment will use the most power. That increase in power consumption strains the conductors used to supply that power. When you have a weak connection in the conductors alongside high current draw, this leads to the conductors getting dangerously hot to the point of melting anything near them. A good technician performing a comprehensive inspection will inspect and properly torque these connections to alleviate this disaster from happening. This can be scary too as many of these connections especially in Onslow County North Carolina are in the attic of the home surrounded by lumber.

The easy issues to avoid during the colder months that are caught by technicians are failing capacitors, dirty blower wheels and coils, failing defrost cycles. All of the forementioned can and will lead to either poor performance or complete failure of the system to provide heat. These issues are also only properly diagnosed by experienced technicians trained to identify, test/verify, and rectify. When the defrost cycle is compromised, the heat pump side of the system will fail to operate as designed, leaving the equipment completely reliant on the auxiliary heat thus increasing energy consumption to the point of $500+ electric bills. No one wants to see that and a good maintenance inspection can help you avoid it.

One of the biggest issues that can only be caught by a good technician and will hurt you the most as a consumer is equipment with evaporator coil leaks. The evaporator coil becomes the high pressure side of the system in the heating mode and when there's a leak in that coil, the leak rate gets exacerbated. With the compressor being cooled by the refrigerant in the system, this often times leads to the compressor severely over heating and failing. Failed compressors are one of the most expensive repairs you can have on a system and many times they have to be ordered leaving clients without for several days. This can easily be avoided with a good inspection of the equipment as any technician will always check the refrigerant charge of a system to determine if it could be low.

The last part of a good winter maintenance which is probably the most important is inspection of the auxiliary heat. The auxiliary heat is the largest appliance of any home in terms of current, the most dangerous, and the most necessary when ambient temps drop below 25 degrees or so. The average heat pump installed in Jacksonville, Nc (and surrounding areas) will hit what's called the balance point somewhere between 25 and 17 degrees ambient. The balance point is that point at which even a heat pump in perfect condition can no longer sustain indoor comfort by itself and the auxiliary heat becomes necessary. It's very alarming to wake up at 3 am in the morning, freezing, to find your home is 46 degrees. At 3 m, the likeliness of a contractor coming to see the issue is less than 3%, so your left freaking out about what's wrong, what you're going to do, and how much it's going to cost. This can all be easily avoided.