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What Could Go Wrong? How To Avoid Emergency Heating And AC Repair Calls | Richardson, TX

What Could Go Wrong? How To Avoid Emergency Heating And AC Repair Calls | Richardson, TX

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Complex mechanical systems like your heating and AC equipment in your home do occasionally have unplanned outages, times when you need to call for emergency heating and AC repair to get your home cooling or heating as you need to stay comfortable and safe at home. Many times, failures occur when systems are under particular stress due to hot weather, a cold snap, or bringing your home back to the right temperature after the system has been off while you were away. This is the time when your maintenance, professional repairs, and timely upgrades will provide a lot of protection against problems, so it’s a good idea to have our team at One Hour Air Conditioning & Heating of Dallas, serving Richardson, TX, keep your system ready for nature’s tests of your equipment. Instead of saying, “what could go wrong? it’s working fine,” you can rest assured that you’ve done your due diligence and made your HVAC service less of a gamble.

Ensuring That Your Electrical Service Is in Good Shape

If you’re having to reset the circuit breakers for your heating and cooling systems on a regular basis, it’s time to find out what’s going on. It could be that your AC or furnace, or even your air handling equipment is drawing too much power, either because the circuit capacity is too close to what the unit needs and it’s pulling a bit more as it ages, or because there’s a problem like a worn-out compressor causing too much current demand. In any case, if you’re getting breaker tripping or fuses blowing, the answer is calling our emergency heating and AC repair, not just resetting or buying more fuses.

Simple Answers

There are components you’ve probably heard about as simple answers to AC problems, the capacitor and contactor to name two. There are similarly essential and simple components in the furnace, such as the ignition transformer for oil-burning furnaces. These are components that simply have a limited lifespan and at some point in the decade or so after installation, they’ll need a quick replacement. Sometimes there are clues, like unreliable operation, that give you a chance to get our Richardson, TX emergency heating and AC repair team in and perhaps the answer will be that simple, preventing a total failure. Sometimes not, which is why we check so much when we do a thorough maintenance on your systems.

Puddles and Strange Noises

If you see puddles near your indoor or outdoor units, smell strange smells near them, or hear strange noises when they or your ventilation fans run, that’s a great opportunity to have our emergency heating and AC repair team come and investigate what is offering clues that it’s not going to last. In some cases, condensation can be an indication of issues like icing of the condenser that in turn have other solutions such as simply replacing a very clogged air filter.

Refrigerant Issues Can Complicate Things

In those coils in your condenser and evaporator travels refrigerant which is the key to your AC. Damage to the coils can allow the refrigerant to leak, reducing the efficiency of the unit so it can’t cool your home as well, and eventually leading to no cooling at all. Our emergency heating and AC repair team can check it as part of investigating poor performance, and catch refrigerant problems before you totally run out. A strange note: some homeowners have had dogs urinating on their AC unit outside, and damaging the coils that way. It might be good to protect your unit from damage from storm-blown objects and also roaming doggies.

Keep the Condenser Coil Clean and Undamaged

Again, the condenser coil needs to be intact to keep the refrigerant in and cooling efficiency high. The other issue is that the coil needs to be clean so it can work properly, and over time material blown in not only by storms, but lawnmowers passing by and other yard activity can raise dust and coat it. Part of a standard maintenance or service by our emergency heating and AC repair team is a good, careful cleaning of the coil, another practice that stands well on its own as well to keep your AC system from struggling and working too hard to cool your Richardson, TX home.

Evaporator Coils Need Love, Too

Inside the house, keeping the evaporator coil clean is also critical to proper operation. Here’s an interesting chain of events. If the evaporator is blocked, it can’t cool your warm air passing by, but it’s still cold so what happens? Ice often forms, blocking it even more. What a mess! A blocked air filter can also reduce the airflow and lead to evaporator troubles. Cleaning and filter replacing are more ways that our emergency heating and AC repair team can bring life back to your system, and they’re great preventive measures as well. Cleaning, once again, is best done professionally because damaging the coils has significant consequences.

How’s the Flow Between Condenser and Evaporator?

The copper pipes between your condenser outside and an evaporator inside are essential to the operation of your air conditioning. They should be insulated and protected, and our emergency heating and AC repair professionals will look to make sure they’re undamaged because, without an intact path for coolant, your AC system isn’t going to do much.

The Fan that Cools Your Condenser Unit

There’s a fan, usually, on top of your condenser unit outside, that should be running when the unit is. If it’s not running at all, it either means that there’s a problem with the fan, or trouble with the unit as a whole, either controls or electric power. Our emergency heating and AC repair team will look into it if you notice the fan is not turning and give us a call.

Checkups After Storms

Wind and rain can loosen all sorts of material and get it into your AC unit during a storm. A quick check can reveal whether your unit looks like it’s going to need a cleanout or not, and a quick call to us can get our team out to take care of it, not only cleaning up the condenser coil but also making sure that materials didn’t get into the compressor, fan, control board, and other components.

Don’t Landscape Close to Your Outdoor Unit

Grass clippings, small rocks, and other material from your lawnmower can cause all sorts of trouble in your AC unit, especially damaging or blocking the condenser coil. If our emergency heating and AC repair team sees well-trimmed grass right up to the unit, they’ll usually check for trouble inside. As protection against curious dogs and cats as well as objects blown into the unit, some people install a bit of low fencing around the unit.

Keep the Critters Out

Though the cover is supposed to provide good protection for your outdoor unit, damage and the fact that some creatures are just small enough to slip in somehow can lead to cute little nests of small creatures or not-so-cute nests of bees or other insects. This can lead to internal damage from chewing wires, belts, and hoses, and our emergency heating and AC repair team often find issues like these in units that haven’t been opened and maintained, or serviced for several years.

Your System’s Air Filter Can Become an Obstacle to Airflow and More

Many homeowners don’t realize how essential it is to keep your system’s air filter clean by replacing it regularly. Ask us how often is right for your system, but it’s at least several times a year. Our emergency heating and AC repair team finds air filters that look like a gray furry animal is on top of them. The dust bunnies and other materials have gathered and become so deep on top of the filter.

Ventilation Checkups Keep Warm and Cool Air Flowing

When your system runs to heat or cool your home, fans blow air around your home to distribute the HVAC output. The motors and belts that drive the fans eventually wear out, and if you don’t have any airflow, that’s one of the first places our emergency heating and AC repair team will look. The absolute first may be the air filter.

Ducts Can Get Constricted

It’s rare for an emergency heating and AC repair service call to include duct cleaning, but there are some ducts that have gone uncleaned for so long, the airflow is severely restricted by the material lining them. We highly recommend a full system duct cleaning service every couple of years, both for the health benefits of cleaner air and to keep the full duct capacity available for your system to distribute warm and cool air.

Evaporator and Heat Exchanger

Issues with the evaporator and heat exchanger inside your house can cause problems with your cooling and heating, and a heat exchanger in good shape is essential to protect you against combustion products from the furnace. Our emergency heating and AC repair team may check these to make sure heat or cooling is being transferred, and look for ice on your evaporator which is a common problem of AC trouble. They may test your air for carbon monoxide and other contaminants if they suspect problems with your heat exchanger or furnace itself.

Furnace Tuneups

Your furnace needs to be able to respond when the thermostat says it’s time, and that’s where the ignition circuit and burner come into play. If they’re not well-tuned, they might not start on the first try, or even at all, and then, no heat. Our emergency heating and AC repair visit for heating problems will probably focus on making sure this essential function is in good shape and reliable. The ignition source, over time, can get weak, and when your furnace hasn’t been tuned up in some time, even if it does start and run, it’s going to be poor combustion with soot or other byproducts, and lousy fuel efficiency.

Furnace Fuel and Filter

If your furnace has ignition, what about fuel? The problem can be as simple as that. Is there fuel in the tank or is your natural gas supply still flowing. Sometimes it takes a call to the gas company to resolve gas flow issues, either from supply problems or accounting issues. It’s worth checking. Fuel filters left unchanged for too long cause fuel blockers, so our emergency heating and AC repair team may check to make sure your fuel is flowing through the filter.

Pilot Light Issues

For furnaces that use a pilot light, it pays to notice what it looks like and note signs of trouble. Our furnace experts can check it as part of a furnace tuneup, making sure that it’s not an unusual color, flickering, or looking weaker than usual. There are lots of potential causes for trouble, but if you notice that it’s not bright and strong, just give us a call and we can make sure to take care of this essential part of your furnace’s operation.

AC and Furnace Retirement: Considering the Age and Condition of Your Unit

When our emergency heating and AC repair team in Richardson, TX comes to get your unit going, sometimes there will be significant issues that indicate a new AC unit or furnace is a good idea pretty soon. Fortunately, our company has many ways to help with that situation, so why not get informed and start thinking about what is ultimately the best way to ensure reliable and efficient heating and cooling: a modern HVAC system.

Emergency Heating and AC Repair in Richardson, TX

One Hour Air Conditioning & Heating of Dallas provides our customers in nearby Richardson, TX with emergency care when their systems struggle or fail just as they’re most needed. We also offer information on maintenance options for reliability and efficiency, targeted preventive repairs, and new unit installation options that you’ll appreciate when the time comes. Give us a call for prompt assistance.