Air conditioners and heat pumps Maintenance

You may save hundreds or even thousands of dollars yearly through regular maintenance and cleaning of your air conditioner or heat pump elements.

Many people assume that air conditioners and heat pumps dispense with regular maintenance, which is deeply wrong. After some time of normal operation and exposure to elements, dirt and debris will clog the filters, coils and blower of these appliances.

Note:
The Air Conditioners and the Air Heat pumps technologies are basically the same. Hence, the similarity in terms of maintenance.

Air Conditioner Filters

The most important air conditioner maintenance task involves replacing or cleaning filters. Keeping the filters clean will provide energy savings of 10% or more. See: AC Filters.

Indoor Coils

Cleaning filters is important, but in time the indoor evaporator coil will still collect dirt, which will reduce air flow and block the coil and normal airflow. To avoid it, you should check your evaporator coil every year, and clean it. See, for details: Indoor Coils Cleaning.

Outdoor Coils

Outdoor condenser coils can also become very dirty if the outdoor environment is dusty or if there is foliage nearby. You should check the condenser coil to see if there is dirt on its fins.

Also remove as much as possible all the possible sources of dirt and debris near the air conditioner condenser: falling leaves, lawn mower, dryer vents... Clean the area around and near the coil. Remove debris and foliage from near the condenser, to allow adequate airflow.

Outdoor coils cleaning is a typical professional task.

See, for details: Outdoor Coils Cleaning

Blower Cleaning

See: Blower cleaning

Professional vs. do-it-yourself job

Room air conditioner cleaning is a do-it-yourself task, if you are sufficiently motivated to undertake it.

Unless you have some experience and very reasonable skills, central AC coils (mainly indoor coils) and blower cleaning should be carried out by a professional technician. Central AC cleaning service may cost you $150-$300 but it will save you many times that value…

See:

Professional AC Technician Services
Outdoor Coils Cleaning
Indoor Coils Cleaning
Blower Cleaning

For room air conditioner coils and blower cleaning, see: Room air conditioner maintenance and Blower cleaning