Don’t Kill Your Air Conditioner

Forgetting to change your air filter is one of the ways you can kill your air conditioner.

When the filter gets too dirty, disrupting airflow over the air conditioner’s evaporator coil, your coil gets too cold and freezes up.

After it freezes up, liquid refrigerant flows back to the outside unit compressor. Since compressors can only compress refrigerants in gas form, the liquid refrigerant destroys the compressor. This will force you to replace your compressor, which is costly. You may have to get a new outdoor unit, but remember to check your filter once a month and change it as needed! Think closing your air vents can help you to save money? Closing the vents can cause your evaporator coil to freeze up around the dirty air filter. Closing air vents increase pressure in the duct system! Your air blower is only designed to work with a certain amount of pressure. Extra pressure can slow the blower speed down. A slower speed means less air flow over the evaporator coil, and causes the same problems as a dirty air filter. So, be sure to leave all of your air vents open. Your unit is not exactly the definition of beauty. You might want to cover the outside unit with bushes, a fence or a decorative cover – but covering the outside unit causes the compressor to overheat. Your unit works like a heat sponge, absorbing heat from your home’s air and then dumping that heat outside. But, if the outside unit is restricted by a fence, cover, or bush, it struggles to release heat outside. This causes the equipment to run longer, eventually overheating the compressor! Don’t cover the top of your outside unit, and be sure to keep a minimum of two feet of space free around the unit on all sides.

mini split air conditioner

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *