Most home in the Champaign Urbana are have and use a central air unit.  This unit has two major components.  This first is a set of condensing coils, referred to as an “A” coil.  The second is the actual condensing unit located outside.  These two components have a variety of parts and pieces that help cycle refrigerant cooling your home.  This entire system and its components are typically rated about 10 years of use.  If properly maintained they can work much longer.  Indeed, they will lose efficiency as the major parts like the compressor wears but it will work none the less.  So let’s look at a few things that will effectively kill your central air system.

Your air filter

This is a simple item that every home owner needs to know how to check and replace.  If you don’t regularly change your air filter, the air your system is taking from the home won’t be able to pass over the interior condensing coils properly.  Why does this matter?  Well, because the air that passes over these coils transfers the heat from the inside of your home onto the coils and is pushed out.  By not changing your air filter, you are causing the system to work harder to move enough air in order to get the temperature down to where you have your thermostat set at.  This unnecessary stress can shorten your systems life span.

Your Pets

Believe it or not your outside pets can create havoc on your outside condensing unit.  Simply put, keep your dog’s away from this unit.  For whatever reason out of all the real estate they have available to them, they still chose to urinate on this unit.  The acids found in urine can slowly eat away at the aluminum condenser coils causing a refrigeration leak that just cannot be repaired.

Cleaning

We can’t stress the importance of good maintenance routine.  As your outside condensing unit runs, you will see a fan on top running.  As this fan runs its drawing air through a second set of condensing coils.  This is where the heat from inside your home has been moved to in the cooling process.  As the air is moved over these coils, all the dirt, cut grass, and other junk found outside can build up here.  It’s important to keep these coils and the fan cleaned off once a year.  If not, you will put unnecessary stress on your system causing parts to fail.     

This is just a snap shot of what you can do to kill your air conditioner.  For more information about this topic don’t hesitate to give us a call for more pro tips!