I’m pretty sure there was a thread not too long ago about stupid stuff people didn’t know, but I can’t find it.
I suspect this is something everyone but me knows:* if you have central air, you have to regularly clean the grill that takes in air and dissipates heat.* You have to clean it with water from the inside, to effectively push out the pollen/dirt/nastiness that collects in it. Also, you have to keep plants from growing right up next to the unit, for the same reason - good airflow.
My next-door neighbor, who is handy, showed me that last night, when I was telling him the AC wasn’t working well and I was afraid I’d have to call someone. He showed me frost built up on the condenser pipes, and how to shut the outside unit off, and told me what I need to do, and knew that he had to tell me to not use too much water pressure because that AC grill is delicate like a car radiator, because it’s the kind of thing I’d screw up.
Yeah, more info would be cool. I’ve cleaned the outside of my air conditioner to get the cottonwood stuff and spiderwebs and such off, using a vacuum and its brush attachment. Is there yet another home maintenance thing I’m not doing as well?
I’m talking about the outside unit, although googling around I see that inside, you’re supposed to clean the evaporator filter (below the plenum - you know, the plenum? I plenum, you plenum, he/she/they plenums? C’mon, this is like first grade plenumology!) too. I may leave that to the guy who looks at my furnace once a year.
Never heard of this at all. The pros use an acid solution to clean stopped up AC coils. But that rarely happens unless there’s a lot of pollution. I used the same AC window unit 12 years without any maintenance. Sold it after getting central air.
My current home central heat/air is on a contract. They do preventive maintenance & inspection twice a year. I’ve never seen the technician spray anything with a water hose.
Outside = condenser and radiator. Inside = evaporator coil, blower, filter. Ice shouldn’t build up on your outside unit unless the insulation has been stripped off. You can find a handy diagram here. The part on the outside which would build up frost is the blue lines coming out of the top of the radiator unit. These should be insulated with tight-fitting foam pipe insulation as they run back into the house to keep them from absorbing outdoor heat and evaporating before the refrigerant(typically freon) gets back into the house. Dogs and kids love to pick this off and it does break down over time, especially in direct sunlight, so check to see if it’s a nice foamy consistency and doesn’t flake off when you touch it. If it does, tear off a piece and head to your neighborhood hardware store and get some more of the same I.D.(Inside Diameter). It’s a snap to re-install, just put it around the pipe and pull the plastic covering the adhesive out and it’ll glue itself into a tube around the pipe.
Most maintenance just involves spraying the outside of the condenser unit(the outside part) with water using a slow side to side motion and starting at the top and working your way down, kind of like spray washing a car. The technique your neighbor showed you is actually much more rare, although more thorough, and is more of a every few years thing, and mostly if you haven’t kept up with regular maintenance. If you rinse it every thirty days or so during the summer and give it a good hosing down during the spring then you should not need to take it apart and spray it from the inside. In any case, this is probably something best handled by a professional. If you’ve ever noticed the massive double circuit breaker dedicated to your AC in your electrical panel you might have thought “damn, that’s a lot of juice.” Well, the vast majority of that juice runs into the condenser unit to power the compressor. There’s a lot of serious electrons in there and if you don’t cut the power correctly it’s bad news for people with water hoses. Best to do exterior hosedowns more frequently than shut it off and partially disassemble it.
But by all means, be sure you’re insulating your refrigerant return pipes and rinsing your radiator fins.
See, I’m a guy with the homeowner skillz of someone who should have paid technicians, but with the budget of a guy who should do this himself.
Didn’t notice any insulation on the pipes. I do know a couple of guys at my local hardware store by name, who know I’m the kind of guy who needs to bring in a piece of the house and have them match it. I think I can measure the pipe diameter, though.
And my neighbor already helped me remove the circuit breakers for taking the top off and rinsing from the inside.
I’ve found it very handy in recent years to take a cell phone pic of the thing I want to do something with, and show it to the guy at the hardware store. Take measurements and have a picture and they can hook you up.
If you’re just hosing off from the outside, not necessarily. If the unit kicks on while you’re washing it down it’ll blow some water straight up and you’ll get some mud rain. Just turn it off at the thermostat to avoid this possibility if you want.
If you’re going to open it up and hose it off from the inside, then absolutely turn off the power at the breaker.
That’s what I thought, but I have a huge blind spot about when it’s safe to muck with electrical equipment. Looks like I’ll be doing that tomorrow, especially since Phoenix just had that massive dust storm. I’m sure the radiator needs it.
Ok, maybe it’s time for something more comprehensive. Here’s a HowStuffWorks article on how to maintain a central AC. It includes stuff like cleaning the evaporator coil(yes, that needs to be done about once a year, preferably before it gets hot), degunking the drip pan(so mold doesn’t grow and be blown all through the house, causing health problems), and a very detailed, and in my opinion overkill, section on cleaning the radiator fins. Some units require substantial disassembly to get to these fins and I wouldn’t recommend trying to do it yourself if you’re not the mechanical type.
Bit of advice (no, I’ve never done it, but I know someone that did)… NEVER use a pressure washer on the fins. Ever. Just trust me here.
Plain ol’ low pressure (hose) water is fine, but also don’t try to scrub the fins with anything, they are very very easy to bend, and once bent lose efficiency tremendously.