According to HVAC repair pros, your home’s heating and cooling unit is one of the most important devices in your home. After all, without it, your home can become uncomfortable all year round. An HVAC unit can easily help you maximize your home’s comfort while allowing you to improve its energy efficiency.
However, keep in mind that you can only reap the benefits of your HVAC unit if it’s optimized to work just as it’s meant to. Unfortunately, there are some mistakes that homeowners might be making that forces their HVAC unit to work harder than it should, which in turn results in wasted energy.
In this article, air conditioning service expert Albert Air lists the eight things that are making your home’s HVAC unit work harder than it should.
1. Dirty Coils – When you own an HVAC unit for your home and you want it to work as well as it should, it’s important that you keep its coils as clean as possible. This is because if your coils are dirty, the unit’s heating and cooling components won’t be able to properly condition the incoming air, forcing them to work harder than they have to in order to accomplish the level of conditioning that your home needs.
According to experts, there are many ways your coils can become dirty. For instance, if you live in a coastal area, the saltwater in the air could cause your coils to deteriorate. If you have a sprinkler system, the water’s mineral content could also do the same if it’s near the unit. If you mow grass near the unit, on the other hand, it could suck up the clippings and block the coils, preventing it from efficiently cooling your building.
2. Faulty Dampers – The dampers of your HVAC unit is what allows air to come into your home and as such, air conditioning service pros say it’s important that it remains in good condition. If your unit suffers from issues in its motors, links, and controls, you can expect the dampers to become faulty, resulting in too much or too little air, even if your system is designed to bring in the optimal amount.
3. Dirty Air Filters – When your home has an HVAC unit, one of the best ways you can keep it well maintained is by ensuring that your filters remain as clean as possible. Otherwise, it’ll become clogged and your system will need to work harder than it should just to push the same amount of air through, unnecessarily wasting energy in the process. Thankfully, keeping your filters clean is easy: all you have to do is replace it every three months, either on your own or with the assistance of a professional.
4. Maintenance Neglect – As the homeowner, it’s your responsibility to ensure that your home’s HVAC unit is well maintained. This is because even if you do have the best HVAC units that the market has to offer, you still can’t avoid the effects of long-term use. If certain parts of the unit wears out, the HVAC unit itself could become vulnerable to damage and waste energy at the same time. With that in mind, be sure to have a professional inspect and maintain the unit on a regular basis, especially its refrigerant charge.
For assistance in maintaining your home’s heating and cooling units, don’t hesitate to turn to Albert Air, the experts to approach if you want to make your “air conditioning repair near me” search much easier.
5. Wrong Ventilation Rate – If you want your HVAC unit to work as well as it should, one way you can do so is by making sure that its ventilation system is bringing in the correct percentage of outside air into your home. Otherwise, you’re just spending energy unnecessarily, forcing you to spend more on your monthly bills. Thankfully, you can easily check if your unit has the right ventilation rate by checking how much is coming through the dampers in your control system. If you don’t know how to do this on your own, however, you can always have a controls expert come in and check for you.
If you have an older system, on the other hand, it might have a fixed ventilation rate that causes you to unintentionally over-ventilate. Should this be the case for your home, you might want to consider having a professional replace the unit entirely instead of maintaining it.
6. Failing to Optimize Your Thermostat Control – In terms of your thermostat control, HVAC repair pros strongly recommend that you properly optimize it so your home feels more comfortable without having to work hard to maintain a certain temperature. For instance, if the outdoor temperature is 100 degrees, 77 or 78 degrees Fahrenheit should make your home comfortable enough. As much as possible, avoid cranking down your thermostat too much as it does not speed up how fast your home cools down. Instead, it’ll only run longer than it should, consuming more energy than needed. To optimize your thermostat control, experts recommend that you use digital thermostats and dial down your thermometer to a couple degrees at night. You can also dial it up a few more degrees in the day during the times nobody is home to save energy.
For assistance in installing digital thermostats or optimizing your home’s temperature, don’t hesitate to turn to the HVAC maintenance experts of Albert Air to get the job done for you.
7. Not Dividing Your House Into Zones – On the other hand, if you have a large home or you want to prevent your commercial building’s HVAC unit from working harder, consider employing zoning tactics to manage your heating and cooling in a more efficient manner. According to experts, this can easily be done by having an HVAC contractor apply zone dampers into your air duct system, closing off unused or empty rooms, or adjusting the temperatures according to usage patterns in certain parts of your home.
8. Failing to Reduce Indoor Humidity – Finally, failure to reduce your home’s indoor humidity can also result in your HVAC unit working harder than it should as the muggy air can make your home uncomfortable and harder to cool. As such, reducing your home’s indoor humidity can easily solve this problem without forcing you to tax your HVAC unit. In fact, by doing so, you’ll be able to set your air conditioner above 78 degrees and still remain comfortable at the same time. This is because your body can stand a few more degrees if your indoor air is drier and being circulated. To reduce your home’s indoor air humidity, you can use a dehumidifier whenever the temperature rises to take the water out of the air. Alternatively, you can also apply proper ventilation procedures, such as opening your windows or your exhaust fans, to reduce your home’s indoor humidity.
Make your “air conditioning repair near me” search easier by turning to the pros of Albert Air. With nearly 40 years of experience in the HVAC business, we are the leading experts to approach and we are dedicated to providing homeowners with nothing but quality service when maintaining their HVAC units. When you hire us for your heating and cooling needs, you can rest assured that we won’t let you down! Give us a call at (714) 526-6368 or fill out our contact form to request a FREE estimate.