We remove outdoor items (including patio furniture, sheds, hot tubs, play sets, etc). and often pass the outdoor air conditioner condenser as we are dragging the parts to our truck. We have noticed that many clients’ air conditioning coils are dirty and blocked with dirt or lawn clippings, which makes the condensing unit work even harder.

How your air conditioner works is often counter intuitive to many. A popular misconception is that the air conditioner creates cold air. But it actually works quite differently. Liquid refrigerant inside the evaporator coil (contained in that big metal box in your HVAC closet or laundry room) collects heat from the indoor air, absorbs it, and passes it out to the outdoor condenser. Heat is then exhausted outside and the now cooler refrigerant liquid is pumped back into the house where the process is repeated. Think of your outdoor condenser like the radiator on your car. It is used to exhaust warm air and if it’s blocked, it’s unable to complete this process – resulting in overheating. You can keep your condenser coils clean by rinsing them off with a garden hose. Use the gentle setting on the hose nozzle to rinse off dirt and debris. Do not use high-pressure hoses or pressure washers as they can bend, deform, or even damage the aluminum radiator.

For the health of the indoor part for the HVAC, change your air conditioner filters (usually located on the side of the aforementioned HVAC unit inside the house). Dirty filters restrict airflow and make the indoor unit work even harder, resulting in a shorter lifespan. We live on a busy thoroughfare and we also foster dogs, which both create dust. So we choose to use higher-rated filters. Most of the higher-rated filters advise that you replace them every 90 days, but our situation calls for us to replace them about every 60 days, depending upon how much we use our HVAC system and how dirty they look upon visual inspection.

Have a professional come once per year to check out the system, make sure all the parts are working correctly, and confirm that there is a correct amount of refrigerant in the system.

Refrigerators work in a similar way. They will last longer, cool better, and use less electricity if you keep their coils clean. We made a short video showing how to clean refrigerator coils:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYfFWn1B9-E

Please Note: The dufus making the video is visibly stiff and uncomfortable!