3 Unexpected Air Conditioning Services You Might Need During The Summer
You probably know you need annual air conditioning services for maintenance of your AC equipment, but you might also need AC services throughout the summer for problems that you least expect. It's fairly common for parts to wear out and cause a breakdown, but you might be surprised to need some of the following air conditioning services.
1. Electrical Repairs Due To A Lightning Strike
A direct lightning strike on your condenser would be rare, but lightning doesn't need to strike your AC to cause damage. The lightning can strike a line and cause a power surge into your home through your electrical panel. The surge can cause harm to anything that's connected to electrical power at the time.
The strike might cause an immediate AC failure depending on the type of damage it caused. A power surge can harm the capacitor, compressor, wiring, and fuse. The damage may not be too noticeable at first, but you may notice your AC just isn't working as well as it should.
This can be due to capacitor damage that might eventually harm the compressor, so you should call an AC repair company to check your air conditioner after your home has had a lightning strike or power surge and your AC doesn't seem to be working normally.
2. Mice Gnaw Through A Wire Or Part
Mice can squeeze inside the air handler, ducts, and even the condenser outside. The condenser makes a nice place to hide. The inside of the condenser has large holes so wiring cables can pass through. These holes also allow mice to enter and move through the equipment.
Mice can cause problems with the electrical system when they gnaw insulation off of wires or when they urinate on parts. They might even destroy parts like the contactor, and when the contactor is bad, your AC won't start.
Mice may be more of a problem in the winter, so when you have spring maintenance, the technician may find nests and clean them out and make repairs if needed. If you notice mice going in and out of the condenser during the summer, take pest control measures to get rid of them and consider calling an air conditioning service to check the parts to see if any need to be replaced.
3. Algae Clogs The Condensation Drain
You might not even realize your air conditioner creates condensation that needs to drain from the air handler to the outside. The drain is usually a small PVC pipe, so you can't see inside it, but if it clogs up with bugs or algae, the pipe won't drain. When that happens, water flows onto your floor, or your AC may shut down first to keep that from happening.
The air conditioning services you may need include cleaning out the clog so the drain works properly and resetting the AC if it shut down for safety reasons. The contractor might add a treatment to the condensation pan that kills algae so you won't have to worry about an algae clog for the rest of the summer.
Contact an air conditioning contractor for more information.
