Preventative Maintenance
Preventative maintenance of your central air conditioning sytem, is very similar to a vehicle's oil change and tune-up, it's benefits can maximize system performance, lower breakdown costs and inconvenience. Most emergency a/c repair calls are from systems that are not maintained. Annual Maintenance can reduce costs for both labor and materials, enhance indoor air quality and lengthen the life of your equipment. That approach is called preventative maintenance, involves ongoing and continuous measurement of key performance parameters of your equipment.
A typical maintenance/tune-up involves an approximate 20 point check list. All these items are equally important. For example a technician may find low refrigerants, compressor failure, bad capacitors etc. what does this mean? well let say the AC system has low refrigerant levels- coil leak.
Refrigerant charge in a central air conditioning system may sound like not much of an issue, however as insignificant as it may sound it is a vital component of your air conditioning system. Many customers complain about their energy bills being high in the summer months, not realizing that a leak in the system is not only harmful to the environment but as it diminishes it can also be costly in your monthly energy bill. When a Technician finds a leak in the coils it is important to take action and have this coils replaced or repaired. Surprisingly we find that a large percentage of customers choose to only have the system charged and not repair the leak as they feel it took about a year to feel hot in the house again. As this may sound right it is not true, many have been running the compressor in the fall and spring for hours not realizing that it is only circulating the air similar to operating the fan mode of the thermostat. This long compressor running time will eventually exceed the cost of repairing the leak, without mentioning other components such as the compressor may commence to fail.
Therefore, have your system checked on regular basis, it is recommended to have a professional go through the preventative maintenance check list at least annually, best every 6 months- spring and fall.
