As the days get warmer and summertime weather approaches, it is time to get your home's air conditioner ready for use. The exterior air conditioner's compressor can become dirty from debris and sitting outside of your home all winter and will need some simple cleaning to prepare it. Here are some tips to help you get your air conditioner and compressor ready for the heat.
Remove Winter Protective Cover
Removing the winter storage cover from your air conditioner may seem like a natural first step to preparing your air conditioner for its power to be switched on, but this can commonly be forgotten. Attempting to run your air conditioner with its cover on your outdoor compressor can cause the motor to burn out and the compressor to need repairing. Any covering over your compressor will create a suction within the unit.
Often, homeowners place a section of plywood weighted down with several bricks over the top of the compressor unit to protect it from falling ice and wet weather during winter. Make sure to remove this or any other type of protective covering before running the unit.
Clean Fan Interior
Next, it is important to remove any debris from the interior of your air conditioner's compressor. Debris, such as leaves, dirt, and other vegetation can become trapped within the unit and cause build up to occur on the compressor's coils. Removing the debris regularly can help keep the interior clean.
Disconnect power to the unit at the breaker box in your home or outside at the electrical connection to your compressor. Then you can remove the screws holding the outside grill and cover to your air conditioner unit and lift it from the interior components to place it next to the unit while you clean it. Wearing work gloves, pull out larger pieces of debris, then use a shop vacuum to remove smaller debris and dirt.
Clean Coils
After you have removed the loose debris from the interior of your fan, it is recommended to clean the coils of your condenser. The coils facilitate the expulsion of warm air from your home to the outside air. When these coils become covered in dirt, they cannot properly cool the warm refrigerant contained within them, which makes your air conditioner work harder to cool you home.
Use a pressure washer to spray the coils clean or apply and let soak a coil cleaner solution, which you can find at most home improvement and HVAC stores. Be sure to follow the directions on the bottle to avoid any injury to your body while you spray on, let soak, and rinse clean the cleaner from the unit's coils. Replace the cover to your unit and restore its power.
Follow these directions to help you prepare your air conditioner, like at http://robinsonheatingandcooling.com/, for summer.
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