Having your air conditioning stop working is one of those unexpected bumps in the road that can turn into a serious issue fast. Not having AC in South Florida can be brutal and during this stressful time it’s important to know what to do other than call an AC repair company in Fort Lauderdale. If your AC stops working, here are 3 things that you immediately need to do.
#1 TURN OFF YOUR AIR CONDITIONER
If your air conditioning stops working or is blowing warm air, leaking water or maybe not turning on at all immediately turn off you AC unit. By running your AC when there is an obvious problem you can end up causing permanent damage to your AC with no other option than to install a new air conditioning unit. If you catch it early enough most of the time your air conditioner will be able to be repaired.
#2 CHECK YOUR AIR FILTER
I asked this question around the office the other day, “what percent of our service calls and AC issues are caused by a dirty air filter?”. The overall consensus was around 20-30%. That’s a lot! If your air filter is clogged it will restrict airflow. Restrictions in airflow whether it’s a clogged air filter or a clogged evaporator coil will cause liquid refrigerant to not completely boil off into a vapor bringing liquid refrigerant back to the compressor. Compressors can handle a little bit of liquid but if it’s running 24 hours a day you will have problems. If that was too technical, the moral of the story is make sure to check and change your air filter regularly to avoid costly repairs and service interruption.
#3 LOOK FOR SIGNS OF ICE
Whether you have a central air conditioning unit, a mini split or rooftop unit you can check to see if there’s ice forming on the copper piping. ice build up tells us a few things about what’s wrong with your AC. A dirty air filter can cause ice (see #1). A dirty evaporator coil or you are low on freon. Those are the three issues that can cause ice to form.
When you call Cool My Air for air conditioning repair our dispatchers will actually ask you to check your air filter before we come out to your location. There are times where the customer checked their air filter, saw it was clogged, replaced it with a clean one and their AC started working again. We do this to try and get your AC quickly running again and save you the cost of us changing it for you. However, even if you change the air filter and the system seems to be cooling again it’s highly recommended you schedule an AC maintenance and tune up to make sure everything is running normally. If you have any questions or want to schedule an appointment please call Cool My Air at 954-298-0114 today.
