Access Customer portal
In the video below, President and Owner of Tri County Air, Billy Swanson, provides you with tips on how you can help your new air conditioning and heating system last as long as possible.
Video Summary:
If you just spent thousands of dollars to replace your air conditioning and heating system (or if you are trying to get your old system to hang in there for just a few more summers) you’re probably wondering how to properly take care of it and how to avoid a costly repair. Here are a few things to keep in mind when trying to help your air conditioner last as long as possible:
Think of your air conditioner like your body. The circuit board is like the brain, the compressor is the heart, the coils are the lungs, the refrigerant piping is the veins…and corrosion is like cancer. If we work hard to keep each of these components healthy and avoid anything that might cause “cancer”, then we are more likely to have an air conditioning and heating system that has a long, healthy life.
How do you do this? It isn’t like there is a doctor for an air conditioner like there is for a human body, right?
Well, actually…we here at Tri County Air are like doctors for your air conditioning system.
Just like we humans have to go to the doctor regularly to get checked up, our air conditioners and heat pumps need the same kind of attention. The best way to keep each of the important “body parts” of the air conditioner clean is to have regular maintenance. We recommend that maintenance is performed at least once per year, but you might want to increase to twice per year after your a/c gets to be above 5-6 years old. It is important to keep in mind that air conditioning years are like dog years – so a 5-6 year old system is actually 35-42 years old.
During a maintenance call, a Tri County Air technician will clean your coils to allow your air conditioner to “breathe”. They will also ensure your compressor is working to properly to circulate the refrigerant throughout the system. During this time, the technicians would also be able to find if there were any issues with the refrigerant piping, or any other aspect of the air conditioner. They would also be able to provide you with a list of things to keep an eye on or make suggestions on how to improve the longevity of your a/c system.
One of the suggestions they make might be to install a “Kickstart”, depending on the startup amps. Just like humans have a harder time getting out of bed as they get older, your air conditioner has a more difficult time starting up as it ages. This is where a “Kickstart” comes in handy, it helps your air conditioner start up more quickly.
Overall, the main goal of regular maintenance is to minimize the expanse of corrosion as much as possible. As previously stated, corrosion is like cancer to your air conditioning system. Unfortunately, we live on the Gulf Coast of Florida, where the salty air might make us happy to live here, but it definitely doesn’t do our air conditioners any favors. During a maintenance call, we make every effort to protect your air conditioner and prevent corrosion by applying anti-corrosive substances to the most at-risk components of your a/c.To be honest, corrosion will happen, but we do everything we can to slow it down.
I’m sure that by now you know where we are going with this – maintenance, maintenance, maintenance! If you want to get the most out of your air conditioner or heat pump, regular maintenance is a MUST. Keep in mind, you don’t want the kind of maintenance where a technician simply “looks” at the system, you want to have maintenance performed by a reliable and honest air conditioning and heating company that will keep your system clean and make appropriate recommendations in order to increase its longevity.