Troubleshooting Home Central Air Conditioners
The central air conditioning system is a complex piece of machinery that consists of an outside unit with a condenser and a fan and an indoor unit through which warm air is conditioned by being made cool. The outside unit is subject to being harmed by everything from weather conditions to children playing. Troubleshooting a system always begins with the simplest explanation before you move on to increasingly more sophisticated reasons for the system's failure. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Check to make sure that the power supply is not the reason behind the compressor unit not turning on. Replace a blown fuse or flip the circuit breaker. Make sure that the thermostat has not been reset to a higher position by someone else. Call for professional repair and service if the problem is a faulty high-pressure switch.
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Check for a bent blade in the outside condenser unit if the air conditioner is making a noise and not working as efficiently as usual. Retrieve any foreign object that might have caused the fan blades to get bent and replace the blade. The fan blades are what moves air through the system, and a bent blade will cause the air to move less effectively.
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Make sure that your outdoor condenser unit is perfectly level to ensure peak performance. Use a spirit level to measure the top surface. Adjust an uneven level by placing wood shims under the feet of the outdoor unit and test with the spirit level again.
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Clean the coils of the condenser unit if the air conditioner is working, but the rooms aren't getting cool. Use a soft brush to remove dust from the fins and the coils of the outdoor equipment. The fins on the side of the condenser can get bent as with the fan blades, but you can feel free to unbend the fins instead of replacing them. Use a fin comb to straighten bent fins.
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Clear away any obstructions to the condenser unit. This means pruning back trees and shrubs and moving away any gardening or play equipment. Central air conditioners depend on freely flowing air, and any obstruction to that air flow will reduce their efficiency.
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Run just the blower of your central air conditioning system to melt frost collected on the evaporator coils, which can cause short cycling. Run the blower for a few hours, but turn off the air conditioning. If this still does not fix the problem of short cycling, check the refrigerant level and call in a pro for service if it is low.
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References
- Photo Credit condensseur image by photlook from Fotolia.com
