What Does AC Maintenance Involve?
Many homeowners are aware of the importance of keeping up with regular AC maintenance, but what actually happens during an annual air conditioner tune-up? In addition to cleaning various components of your cooling system, a skilled AC technician will inspect and test many different aspects of your air conditioner, performing a variety of tasks to ensure optimal performance, maximum efficiency, and help extend system life.
During the Maintenance Visit:
Regardless of whether your home has a central air conditioning system and/or ductless air conditioners – including heat pumps – there is an extensive checklist that Save Home Heat Company’s highly skilled AC technicians run through during a maintenance visit. It’s a top to bottom complete annual servicing that ensures your cooling system will have the greatest chance of avoiding unforeseen problems, helping to spot issues getting ready to rear their ugly heads, as well as focusing on many other aspects of assuring safe, efficient, reliable long-term cooling performance.
Cleaning
An important part of thorough annual servicing involves cleaning your system. Outdoors, dust and other debris such as leaves and branches (cottonwood blossoms are notorious!), and even plastic bags and cardboard blowing around the neighborhood, can find their way into your central AC, ductless AC, or heat pump’s outdoor condensing unit, negatively impacting the system. If thorough cleaning of the outdoor unit is neglected, this could cause parts failures or refrigerant-related issues, preventing the system from doing its job. Save Home Heat Company technicians pay close attention to all cleaning needs, including the condenser coil (with its many aluminum fins), other components such as the fan in the outdoor unit, and the overall interior of the unit’s compartment.
Inside your home, on central AC systems our technicians check the furnace filter and replace or clean it, as needed. The furnace blower is also given a look, to make sure no excessive dust has accumulated from regular use during the heating season, and no new issues have arisen. In the case of ductless air conditioners and ductless heat pumps, the indoor blower units have a permanent filter that should be removed and cleaned at least once per season. In all cases, central and ductless systems, it’s not uncommon that cleaning or replacing the air filter may be necessary more that once per season. during annual servicing The entire indoor blower unit is also inspected and cleaned as necessary.
Inspection and Testing
Other tasks performed during your AC tune-up include, but are not limited to, close visual inspection and testing of key components in the outdoor unit, including capacitors and contactors, and the compressor, among several others.
No annual servicing is complete without full cycling of your AC system/s from the thermostat control. Our technicians accurately measure and record performance of the system during regular operation, making sure that the equipment is doing its job properly, promptly satisfying the setting on your thermostat. If thorough testing of the system indicates an issue that needs a closer look, our technicians have the experience and state-of-the-art diagnostic tools to determine if the issue is related to a parts failure, an airflow restriction, or a refrigerant issue, among several types of common problems our team addresses each year.
When a problem or a potential issue is discovered during the annual servicing of your AC system, our findings are presented in a friendly, clear, low-pressure, informative fashion. We take the time to fully educate our customers on our findings, patiently answer any and all questions, and review all options that make sense to consider. Our professional recommendations always reflect what our team feels is in our customer’s best interests, with no ‘sales agenda’ ever guiding our conversation.
Does my central or ductless AC system need maintenance this year?
Some of the many tasks performed during annual AC maintenance
- Check system operation thru full cycle from thermostat
- Perform detailed cooling performance check of system
- Thorough cleaning of outdoor unit, as needed
- Check the outdoor unit to make sure it’s level
- Check furnace filter and/or ductless blower unit filter & service as needed
- Test key controls and electrical components in the outdoor condensing unit
- Inspect refrigerant ‘lineset’ piping indoors and outside
On Scheduling Maintenance
While it may seem only natural to schedule annual maintenance right at the start of the cooling season, our team feels it’s worth your while to consider having your annual AC tune-up performed a little later in the season. The first couple of hot spells during the cooling season are always among the very busiest time of year for all HVAC contractors, with a slew of no-cooling calls coming in daily from homeowners whose systems failed when first turned on for the season. This is a regular occurrence each year, and our team always prioritizes to take care of families whose cooling systems are not functioning.
For air conditioning systems that have routinely received expert annual maintenance year after year, surprise no-cooling issues at the beginning of the season do not crop up all that often. Simply making sure that the furnace (or ductless) filter is clean, and switching the thermostat to ‘cool’ may be all that’s needed to get your AC system off and running smoothly. Of course, our friendly, knowledgeable staff is always available by phone if you have a question or two, to make sure you got it right.
Annual Maintenance Agreements Reward Your Patience
In the case of Save Home Heat Company customers, another advantage of waiting until after the first rushes of calls have passed, can be found in our annual maintenance agreements. SHH annual agreements feature discounted annual service, special discounts on repairs and replacements, plus annual inspections from one of our home plumbing specialists and one of our expert electricians. All in one reasonably priced annual agreement covering a broad range of home safety bases and household systems. An outstanding value!
Regardless of the time of year, you can count on our team at Save Home Heat Company to provide you with the highest level of service and expertise. In the Denver-Boulder metropolitan area, we recommend that you speak with a helpful, knowledgeable member of our team to learn more about discounted annual maintenance agreements, and to obtain a free quote for a plan tailored to your desires and the specific needs of your home.
