Trending Topics

 

• Maintenance
• Filters
• Most common repairs in the cooling season

 

 

Spring Maintenance Checkup vs Tune-up

Is it the same? A checkup usually refers to a safety checkup, you want to make sure that your system is following its designed sequence of operation in a safe way, this involves more of a visual task list and taking some basic readings (volts, temperature, and refrigerant pressures) to make sure that the system is performing in a safe way.

 

A tune-up is one of the most popular services that AirCo offers year-round, our Gold Plan is one of the most effective tune-ups designed by years of field experience. Our Gold tune-up is a plan that offers a spring and a fall tune-up that will help extend the life of your heating and cooling system and it will also prevent breakdowns during peak season. Did you know that less than 10% of customers that performed this tune-up needed a service call during that season?

Our Gold tune-up covers preventive maintenance by testing each component of your system sophisticated equipment that allows our technicians to see what components need attention before it failing. Cleaning your system is a must to keep it running efficiently, dirty filters, coils and condensation lines that run slow contribute to systems failing prematurely, especially during higher cooling demands. Safety is another focus point of our Gold tune-up, electrical connections and components can short and cause other parts to fail in a second, making sure that everything is secured and up to code is a must, most heating and cooling systems have safety sensors on them but testing them every season is very important to make sure that they will respond when needed.

 

 

Filters

What filter should I use? How often should I replace it? We recommend that you check your filter every month and that you replace it as needed. Every house had different conditions that affect the longevity of the filter, some common time frames are:

 

1" filters - every month

2" filters - every month

4" filters - every 3 months

5" filters - 3-6 month

 

The list above is just a guide, you can ask one of our technicians for recommendations during your tune-up visit. If you want to know more about filters visit our "filter" section.

 

Interested in improving the air quality in your home? Visit our IAQ accessory section.

 

 

Most common repairs during the cooling season

Repairs are something that you can't avoid, although you might think that your heating and cooling system is designed to fail during weekends or on the hottest parts of the day when you have guests. Systems do fail during high demand due to temperature, in this case, in the cooling season, your system runs more times during the day if you have guests how many times that door opens and closes during the day? every moving part generates heat, add the summer temperatures to that and you have the perfect combination for weak parts.

 

Here are the most common parts that fail during the cooling season:

 

Txv's - Thermal expansion valves, they control and make sure that the proper amount of refrigerant enters the evaporator coil, think of them like the gas pedal in your car, it is a constant movement of that piece in order to control the amount of air that mixes with the gasoline. This parts can get stuck and this usually causes your cooling system to run for longer periods usually causing you evaporator coil to freeze, most people see the insulated line frozen at the outdoor system when this happens.

 

Evaporator coils - This is a part that looks like a car radiator, it is used to absorb the heat the air that passes through it, making it cool ( usually 18-20 degrees cooler). An evaporator coil usually leaks, this is caused by excessive rust or corrosion that weakens certain areas over the time, this happens due to air restrictions caused by dirty air filters, dirty blower wheels, weak motors and improper ductwork to name a few.

Reduced air through the coil can cause it to freeze and as ice expands it can create a crack in the coil causing the loss of refrigerant. Also, remember that a bad Txv can cause ice in a coil that can contribute to a possible leak.

Also even though coils are tested at the factory for leaks, they might have a week joint or section of a pipe that gave away for no specific reason.

 

Capacitors - Think of it as a battery that charges and releases power constantly while the compressor and motors run, a common example is a basketball spinning on a finger and the capacitor is the hand that keeps spinning the ball. Capacitors work with high voltage and tend to get warm wile running, they are measured in micro-farads, when they are put of range they are considered bad, a bad capacitor can still make a motor run, but it is not delivering the necessary power to it, this causes the motor to fail prematurely since it overheats and weakens the windings.