With summer quickly approaching there will be a massive demand for air conditioning repair services and most of the time it will come as a surprise. I'm going to discuss some tell tell signs that may help you know if a problem is developing and also save you some heartache. I can tell you that by late June all the way to usually late August in eastern North Carolina all the HVAC companies will be scheduling repairs multiple days out and in really bad summers I've seen schedules being booked out for weeks at a time. Being in that position with no way out of the heat is not fun, so being proactive can really save you some stress.
The number one sign that your HVAC system is going to leave you stranded in the summer is extremely long run times during milder weather. 90% of the equipment in my area is oversized anyways meaning that it really shouldn't run ALL DAY LONG until we start hitting 93 degrees outside. If you notice your system running all day when it's only 80 degrees, that's a sign that when we finally hit those 90+ degree days you will be picking up the phone or your just going to be hot. There's a typically a rule of thumb you can apply in our area which is for every degree the outdoor temp rises beyond the capacity point of the system, the indoor temp will also rise in a linear relationship. What that means is lets say your system struggles to maintain an indoor set temp of 71 degrees when the outdoor temp hits 83, then when we get to 85 you can expect your indoor temp to go to 73. Do the math as we will linger around 89 to 93 degrees for day time highs through the true dog days of summer. As soon as you see this trend in your home, call a service professional and get in front of the issue before the wait times for service are several days out.
The second sign of a developing issue kind of coincides with the first and that is unusually high electric bills. I'm not talking about a $20 difference from this time last year, I'm thinking more along the lines if your normal bill is around $240 and now your paying $300+, that's typically a sign that something isn't right with your hvac system and you need to call. Usually these are fairly inexpensive issues with few exceptions and can be rectified in a very short amount of time.
The third sign that you will need service almost immediately is if you start hearing unusual noises from your system. Lets face it, no one knows your home better than you and you know the "normal" sounds your hvac makes. Noises like the outdoor unit being louder than it ever was in the past, or noises coming from the vents inside that you've never heard; are both key signs that an issue is developing. Don't hope that these noises will go away on their own because when the noise goes away, typically your ac does too. Loud or unusual noises can be the worse of the tell tell signs especially if not addressed early enough. If your outdoor unit is getting louder and louder you are most likely hearing the compressor. The compressor will struggle and get really loud when something else in the system is not right. Waiting to figure out what that something else is could cause the compressor to fail leaving you with no ac, a bad compressor, and the original issue; whereas you could have prevented the compressor from failing by addressing the underlying issue prior to failure.
If something doesn't look right, it's probably not. I tell all my technicians that they were gifted the greatest tool ever for diagnosis and that's the free gift of your eyes. You know what looks normal to you when it comes to your hvac equipment, so if you see something happening that wasn't there before, that's a good time to get it checked out. I'm talking about damage, equipment not being level, wires hanging out... Anything that doesn't look like it did when the unit was new can certainly cause you a problem. I recall a few years ago I went to a service call for a communicating system that wasn't functioning. I was checking the system out and noticed that the thermostat wire going to the outdoor unit was chewed up and mangled. I asked the homeowner how long it had been that way and he said about a week or so (that's when the problem started). He said his dog originally started pulling on the wire which gave it enough slack to hang to the ground, and he accidentally hit it with the weed eater because the wire was so close to the ground. This was obviously the issue for the call and he could have avoided needing new wire installed had he called the moment the dog started tugging on the wire. Don't let a small issue become a larger one. A phone call is free and most service companies will be glad to give free advise over the phone, so if you think something may not be right, call.
The last sign that something may not be right is your own intuition. If you find that the home just isn't comfortable even though the thermostat is at set point, that could be a sign of a minor issue that can become worse if not addressed. This one isn't necessarily an emergency, but you certainly don't want to wait as it could turn into much more. There are many causes for this complaint and typically it's an easy issue to fix. Matter of fact general maintenance will usually prevent this from being a problem in your home.
This was a short article and I hope it helps someone to avoid being without their air conditioning this summer. As always please feel free to comment and provide feed back if you like our articles please follow us on X, Instagram, or Facebook. Thank you.
Kenneth Casebier
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