Keeping Repairs Low During the Summer

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Do high utility bills in the summer get you steaming mad?  There is an easy way to keep the price of bills and repairs low to cool you, and your house, off.

The number one maintenance job a home owner can do to save on repair costs is to clean the shelter in their furnace.  The blower on the furnace circulates the air through the house, whether it is heating season or air conditioning season.  The most important aspect of any central air unit is keeping all of the air in the house in motion.  The air in the house must move back through the return air ducts, down through the blower, and up through the “A”, or evaporator, coil.  When this process is able to run without interruption, your air conditioning unit will be at its top efficiency.  The “A” Coil sits on top of the furnace and pulls the air up through the return air duct when the blower comes on.  Any extra restrictions on the air flow going across the “A” coil will cause your unit to lose efficiency and will raise the price of your electric bills.  The most common culprit of causing unnecessary restrictions to air flow is a plugged filter.

What Happens When the Air Flow is Restricted?

When the air flow is restricted from passing across the “A” Coil, the Freon inside this coil cannot absorb enough heat.   This leads to the temperature of the Freon inside the coil to drop below the freezing point.  The condensation will then hit the coil and when this happens, it starts to freeze on the coil.  As the water from the condensation starts to freeze around the “A” coil it restricts the air flow even further.  This leads to a block of ice forming around the air coil and cuts off air flow completely.

What Happens When the Air Cycle Shuts Off?

When the air conditioning unit enters its off cycle, the ice will begin to melt.  Usually, the condensation is able to be contained and released out of a tube and into the condensate hole where it is drained properly.  When the ice block around the “A” coil starts to melt, the water goes everywhere, piling up around the bottom of your furnace and spreading to any surrounding carpet.  This melting water may also drip onto the control board or electric motor at the base of the furnace.  This is when repair bills can get very high, rocketing up to several hundred dollars.  You can avoid this mess and hassle easily enough by cleaning your air filter, giving you a cool home, time, and money to enjoy the summer months.