Ideally, homeowners should be making sure to get their air conditioners inspected at the start of every season in order to ensure optimum performance, says Ric Hendrickson, a residential sales manager at Patterson Heating and Air Conditioning. The Charlotte-based AC repair company handles all types of HVAC issues for clients throughout North Carolina.
Hendrickson says he recommends to clients that they at least call to have their air conditioners serviced and inspected during the peak spring season—to get ready for the summer months—and near the end of the fall season—to get ready for the winter months.Both air conditioners and heaters should be inspected to make sure that they aren’t malfunctioning in any way that could cause harm to your family or cause damages that could be expensive to repair.
What Is Included In an Inspection?
Hendrickson explains that when a homeowner calls Patterson Heating and Air Conditioning for an air conditioning or heater inspection, he or she can expect to have a skilled, licensed HVAC specialist arrive at his home ready to work. The specialist will look at the system’s evaporator coils, the compressor, and the circuitry to make sure that nothing seems off. “We just want to make sure that everything is running optimally and that everything is clean inside the systems,” he says.
Having an air conditioning system that is running optimally isn’t just a safety issue, it is an efficiency issue as well. HVAC systems that are running under optimal performance are likely to use less energy, which saves homeowners money all season long. Not only that, but systems that are set up for optimal performance can heat or cool more areas of the home in less time, which reduces the amount of time that the system has to run to get the job done and lessens potential energy bills even further.
During the winter months, when people’s furnaces are typically running, Hendrickson says a heating and AC repair specialist from his company in Charlotte will typically visit homeowners to make sure that the heat exchangers in their systems are safe to use. In addition, this specialist will take a close look at the homeowner’s furnace gas valves to make sure that everything is set up for optimal heating performance.
Signs That Your System Is In Trouble
If something is wrong with a system when a specialist shows up for his semi-annual inspection, then it will generally be caught and fixed during that appointment. However, there are times when homeowners might need to get their air conditioners inspected in between seasonal check ups. These would be times when homeowners sense that something is wrong, either due to strange noises or other factors.
One of the biggest things that Hendrickson recommends that homeowners watch out for in determining whether something is wrong with their heaters or air conditioners is an uptick in the electrical bill from one month to another. “Seeing a sudden spike in how much the electrical company is charging you is definitely a strong indicator that something is wrong,” Hendrickson says.
Another sign that something could be wrong with your air conditioner or heater is hesitation in the unit, according to Hendrickson. In gas furnaces especially, hesitation is a common symptom of an underlying problem that needs to be repaired. For example, Hendrickson explains that if a gas furnace were to not heat up as quickly as it is supposed to, or were to to start and stop continually during a heating cycle, then a homeowner would be wise to call a specialist from a company like Patterson Heating and Air Conditioning to take a closer look.
Sudden increases in the amount of money that you are paying in gas bills can be another indicator that something is wrong, although this type of problem in particular would point to an issue with the furnace as opposed to the air conditioner in the home.
Hendrickson frequently gets contacted by people who say they decided to call for an inspection when their carbon monoxide detectors started going off. “If those carbon monoxide detectors ever start chirping, then it is definitely time to have an immediate servicing done on your furnace,” Hendrickson says. In fact, he recommends that anyone with a gas furnace invest in a carbon monoxide detector as a way to protect himself and his family from potential dangers.
Hendrickson explains that people need to take carbon monoxide poisoning very seriously, and that they should not wait at all before calling for furnace repair if they suspect that the carbon monoxide levels in their home are on the rise. In these cases, homeowners in Charlotte should call for a heating or AC repair specialist immediately, and open as many windows as possible while they wait for the expert to arrive for the inspection.
