Home Maintenance and Repair

Tips for doing your own home maintenance and repair

More On Keeping Your Heating and Air Conditioner Clean

As I told you in my previous article it is very important to keep your heating and air conditioning unit clean. I wanted to spend some more time on that subject.

We spoke about how important it is to change your filters in the furnace or air handler in the case of a heat pump. In the air hander there will be a blower and squirrel cage. The blades on the fan can have dirt build up on them over time and this creates friction causing the air to have difficulty moving across the blades. Which means the amount of air coming out of your unit will be less. If you are a real do it yourself type person than you can remove the entire blower assembly and clean it your self or you may want to have a serviceperson check and clean the blower assembly during your annual maintenance. You should not have to clean the blower more than once every 5 years, that is as long as you are changing the filters on regular basis, which by the way, on review is going to be once a month or every 3 months depending on which filters you chose to use. I would also recommend turning the power of f to the unit and dusting out the cabinet especially the area that houses the control circuitry dust tends to insulate causing electronics to overheat shortening their life span.

Lets get back to the outdoor unit before I close. Earlier we talked about cleaning the outdoor coil to help the unit breath. While your there take a look around that unit. Can you even see it through all those bushes it is over grown by. Now I know you think the unit is not pleasing to the eye so you planted these bushes around it so you wouldn't have to look at it. Well look closely and you will notice that those bushes are being sucked through the coil or they are growing inside the unit on there own. One way or another those bushes are suffocating that unit and it will eventually die. So keep the area around the outdoor unit clear all the way around lets say a 3 foot path.