Like most other home appliances, your AC unit requires regular care. It needs not only professional maintenance, ideally an AC Tune-Up twice per year, but also care from you, the homeowner.
Keeping the grass trimmed and the weeds down around your AC unit by at least 2 – 3 feet is the best for your AC system and here’s why….
AC Condenser
The way the outdoor AC condenser unit works is by collecting heat from inside your home and exchanging the heat outside. However, if the condenser coil is dirty or blocked by tall grass or weeds then the condenser cannot exchange the heat properly. Without good airflow, the condenser works harder, wears out faster, and may require more repairs and earlier replacement. Keeping the condenser clean and clear can keep the system running at peak efficiency. In addition, tall grass can lead to…
Pest Infestations
An overgrowth of vegetation is the perfect place for little critters to call home. If this vegetation surrounds your condenser, this can cause these “little” critters to cause some “big” damages! Damages can include ants welding contactors shut, rodents chewing through wires, lizards grounding capacitors, and snakes getting wrapped around the fan motors! You need to be especially careful about pests in the wintertime. Cold weather drives pests to seek out sheltered spots, and when your AC unit doesn’t run in the cold weather, the pests may make nests in its moving parts so that the AC fails when you try to turn it on in spring.
Ease of Access
If your AC unit does have issues this summer, you probably don’t want to fight through bushes and weeds to get to it. Having overgrown weeds can make your emergency repairs take longer because you had to trim away the bushes to see what went wrong. Keeping the area around the unit clear can help any maintenance and repairs take place more quickly and efficiently.
Efficiency
Decreased efficiency can cost you money and even prevent your unit from keeping you as cool as you’d like. When the airflow around your unit is restricted, the condenser coil has to work harder to exchange the heat outside. This means it uses more electricity to do the same job. With better airflow, the same job takes less energy.
All these little things can cause Big issues! Schedule your AC Tune-Up today!!
