Every year, thousands of homeowners stand by the old saying, “If it isn’t broken don’t fix it,” and decide not to have their air conditioners cleaned and maintained by a professional like Four Seasons. Within a few years time, these are also the people that find themselves with an air conditioner that doesn’t cool the home efficiently and energy bills that are through the roof. There are several problems that tend to arise with poorly maintained air conditioning systems, but one of the more serious issues a homeowner can face is clogged coils. Our servicemen at Four Seasons Heating and Air Conditioning see hundreds of units in this condition every year, and it’s a problem that is easily prevented.
Your Air Conditioner Coils
Every central air conditioning system has two coils. The evaporator coil is located inside the home near the furnace and the condenser coils are located in the unit located on the exterior of your home. Both are susceptible to buildup of dirt, dust, and other debris, and need to be cleaned yearly to prevent clogging.
- The Evaporator Coil
Changing your furnace filter on a monthly basis tends to protect the evaporator coil from buildup, but with time this too can become clogged. A clogged evaporator coil will not be able to absorb heat as well as it once could and will subsequently decrease the efficiency of the air conditioner.
- The Condenser Coils
The outdoor condenser coils are subjected to anything that can happen in nature. From mud and mold to pollen and grass clippings, with time all of these particles clog your coils and prevent them from functioning properly. At first you will notice that the home is not cooling off as well as it once did, and eventually the air conditioning system will fail.
A/C Maintenance Solution
By the time the problem gets this bad, it will take a technician hours to pull apart and clean. In some cases, the coil cannot be cleaned because of corrosion and the air conditioner will need to be replaced in order to restore comfort to your home during the summer season. However, this problem can be easily prevented with yearly maintenance tune-ups from Four Seasons Heating and Air Conditioning.
Yearly tune-ups allow you to keep up with the mess created by nature before it does any serious damage to the system. Our tune-up will keep your air conditioner running like new for years to come, and keep you and your family comfortable during even the hottest days of our Chicago summers. Get your tune-up done today, and you will be ready for anything summer can throw at us!
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Tags: Chicago, clogged coil, comfort, condenser coils, cost, debris, energy bills, evaporator coil, Four Seasons, maintenance, Naperville, nature, repair, summer, Tune Up
how long does the coil cleanup normally take?
The cleanup time usually depends on the condition of the coil. A simple wash down of the coils without having to remove them from the system may only take 15 minutes or so on a well maintained system, but an extensive clog could take hours to remove. Coils that are severely clogged need to be power washed on low pressure in order to prevent damage to the coils, and many times the coils must be taken out to be cleaned properly. Your best bet is to never let your coils get this dirty. Taking the system apart to expose and clean the coils is a tedious process, and you don’t want to have to replace your coils or your air conditioner just because you neglected yearly cleanings. Prevention is simple and affordable, and all you have to do is call Four Seasons!
The question is how long does a coil cleaning take? This is an unanswerable question. If a coil can be cleaned in place, it could be done in less than two hours start to finish. That is if every thing is easily accessible and the system is properly charge. The biggest headache we face after the cleaning, did someone along the way change the refrigerant charge to compensate for the coil being partially clogged? Coils don’t become clogged over night. Maybe a couple of seasons ago a tech adjusted the charge because the coil was starting to get dirty. Sometimes customers decide to put a Band-Aid on a problem instead of fixing it. A year or two ago the customer might have thought changing the charge would be cheaper than having it cleaned. The big surprise is they spent more money on electricity to run a dirty unit than they saved not having it cleaned back then.
I can tell you up to six hours to remove and clean a coil is not an unreasonable amount of time. Look at it this way if you as a customer are paying to have a coil removed and cleaned, you will want or should I say demand the unit runs perfectly. No tech worth his weight in salt will walk away from a job of this magnitude with out it working perfectly.