How to Clean & Maintain your Air Conditioner During Winter Season?

Imagine for a second what life would look like without air conditioner units. Maybe you ignored essential maintenance to save a couple of dollars. Now that the weather is getting a little too crazy, you’re regretting that decision. However, as the saying goes,

“Where there’s a Will, there’s a Way”.

AC maintenance is necessary to ensure a prolonged lifespan. The best time to do it was yesterday, the second-best time is now! It might be strange thinking about maintenance considering it's winter right now. The Texan climate is normally short, cold, and dry, so it might not make sense to use air conditioners. However, through maintenance in the off-season, you’re setting yourself up for a comfortable time when summer comes around next season.

The Threat of Omicron

Covid-19 is another threat we have to keep in mind. With new variants coming out every few months, it’s imperative that we keep our households clean and do our best to minimize the threat. “Air Conditioners can be a breeding grounds for diseases”, as Mark Mendell, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Indoor Environment Group states.

According to Mendell, bacteria and micro-organisms thrive in air-conditioning units that are badly maintained. People who are exposed to these micro-organisms in the air are exposed to a greater risk of asthma and allergic problems.

How to Maintain Air Conditioners DIY Style?

Install a Thermostat in your House

Having an air conditioner or an HVAC unit means you have to be able to control it, right? Thermostats are those quirky little devices that help you do that. They’re used to regulate the temperature inside your house to your desired effect. They are connected to the central heating/cooling system and monitor the temperature inside. Changes or drops in the temperature will trigger the thermostats into action.

You can find smart thermostats at reasonable prices and get to control the temperature through an app on your electronic devices conveniently, right? These apps allow you to monitor the air temperature even when you’re not at home.

Show Some Affection to the Exterior AC Unit

Just like that big brother who’s always ignored in the presence of a younger one, your AC unit also has an outdoor unit that almost nobody bothers to check. It uses a complicated system that uses a drain line, a condenser, and a compressor among other parts.

No one part can function properly without the other so you need to ensure that everything is running together in unison. During the winter season, ensure that these parts aren’t left to freeze in the cold.

Give some Breathing Space to the Outdoor Unit

Plants and Trees can definitely elevate the look and feel of your house, but when it comes to ac maintenance, they should be a priority. However, they can also block the exterior parts of your Air Conditioner unit and possibly clog them. Get rid of them to ensure peak performance. To keep the parts clear of dust and dirt, use a water hose to clean them.

The drain line might have excess moisture leaking from the condenser, so you need to check the condenser next to the drain line too.

To get rid of this moisture:

• Clean the drain line by mixing a small amount of bleach and one cup of water.
• Flush the mixture along the drain line to prevent the build-up of mold and algae.

Check for pests such as termites, ants, and others within your air conditioning unit and around it. You might be shocked to find that pests such as termites can cause a lot of damage to your system.

DIY AC Maintenance Tip: Change your Air Filters frequently!

The filters in your air-conditioner act as a barrier against pollutants that can damage your system. Such pollutants include dust and dirt particles that can accumulate in your unit and clog up the interior parts, causing loss of performance and degradation in the quality of the unit itself.

A good rule of thumb is to replace Air Filters every 90 days. And if you want to go for max efficiency, 45 days is generally accepted. There is power in the quality of filters too! And this is measured by their MERV Rating.

The Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) rating for air-conditioners is a scale of 1-20. The higher the rating, the better the filter is at trapping and getting rid of pollutants. However, with great power comes great responsibilities. In AC language, that means that filters with a higher rating (15-20) are thicker and use more power to work.

For most residential buildings, however, a MERV Rating between 5-8 is sufficient enough between providing quality filtration and being efficient. For people with allergies, a MERV Rating of about 10-12 is recommended.

Hire an Air-Conditioning Technician to do a Maintenance Check

For the best maintenance, it is recommended to take the services of a ac technician near you who knows all the technicalities involved.
An AC Technician would normally be trained to do the following things:

• Check refrigerants
• Clean coils
• Grease bearings
• Replace air filters
• Check blowers

Ideally, a maintenance check should be done twice a year to make sure your air-conditioning unit has an extended lifespan. If you’re looking for professional air-conditioning services in Rockwall TX, look no further than Art Electric & HVAC.

At Arts Air Conditioning Repair, we make sure that you get to enjoy pure and germ-free air inside your home and office through our range of services.

Make a Booking Request with Art Today!
Call Us – +1-(214) 316-5944