With daytime temperatures often climbing as high as 90 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer months, you need a functional air conditioner in your Shawnee home. Fortunately, you can prime your AC for optimum summertime performance with pre-season tune-up services. Taking great care of your cooling system can provide other rewards, too, both now and in the future. Read on to discover eight ways in which the maintenance you provide today can pay you later on.
1. Extend the Lifespan of Your Cooling Equipment
The average lifespan of residential air conditioners is between 15 and 20 years. When these units are correctly sized for their service areas, professionally installed, and well-maintained, they can last quite a bit longer. In fact, many modern ACs are expected to last between 20 and 25 years when certain conditions are met.
2. Limit Your Risk of Costly AC Repairs
Some HVAC experts estimate that routine maintenance can reduce the risk of costly AC repairs by as much as 85% to 95%. Well-maintained air conditioners have a much lower likelihood of experiencing compressor failure or compressor collapse, failed evaporator coils, broken fan motors, and refrigerant leaks. Routine maintenance also allows technicians to resolve minor problems before they affect other features, functions, or components.
3. Prevent Humidity-Related Problems Like Mold and Mildew
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), it’s best to keep your indoor humidity between 30% and 50%. Skipping routine AC maintenance can leave you with soft, white patches of mildew and dark, foul-smelling mold in every dark corner and crevice. Worse still, ill-maintained HVAC systems can both spread mold problems and make them significantly harder to treat. Scheduling annual tune-up service and regularly checking and changing your air filter could save you hundreds of dollars in future mold remediation.
Protect Your Furnishings and General Building Materials
Maintaining your AC to support better humidity control can also spare you the high costs and hassle of replacing warped baseboards, wood furnishings, and many other items throughout your home. If your windowsills and drywall are constantly coated in condensation, a dirty, ill-maintained AC is a likely reason why.
4. Protect Residents’ Health
Another important reason to stay on top of AC maintenance is to protect and improve your indoor air quality (IAQ). Dirty ACs can both circulate and add a lot of harmful allergens and contaminants to indoor air if they’re harboring buildups of lint, carpet fibers, dust mites, dirt, and dander. When paired with increasing humidity problems, trapped debris serves as an ample food source for fast-growing fungi and dangerous bacteria.
5. Prevent the Voidance of Manufacturer Warranties
Did you know that your AC equipment manufacturer’s warranty is a mutually binding agreement? Unfortunately, many homeowners don’t. Just as AC manufacturers promise to cover the costs of all replacements and repairs resulting from defective parts or improper assembly, homeowners agree to take good care of their air conditioners. Failing to comply with requirements could result in the automatic voidance of your warranty protections. Even if it does not, it can still lead to frustrating claims denials or delays.
6. Get Tips for Optimizing Your Air Conditioner’s Performance
Routine AC maintenance is the perfect time to ask our technicians about ways to improve your air conditioner’s efficiency and performance. Many people have smart thermostats, zone control systems, and geofencing capabilities that they aren’t using with maximum benefits. When we drop by to tune your air conditioner up, we can show you how to leverage these and other technologies to their full potential and for optimum savings.
7. Identify HVAC Air Duct Problems
During annual AC tune-up service, we check HVAC air ducts for leaks, crushed sections, and other issues. According to the University of Florida, even when perfectly intact, HVAC ductwork can be responsible for the loss of up to 40% of an air conditioner’s cooling energy. When HVAC air ducts are ill-maintained, these losses are even greater.
8. Build a Solid Relationship With Your Service Provider
One of the greatest benefits of staying on top of AC maintenance is relationship-building. For our clients committed to performing diligent AC maintenance, we offer HVAC preventative maintenance plans. These plans include two, covered HVAC maintenance visits, priority scheduling for urgent repairs, and deep discounts on both repair services and replacement parts. Our preventative maintenance plan also eliminates after-hours service fees, trip charges, and overtime fees.
Homeowners in Shawnee, KS can count on us for expert heating, cooling, and indoor air quality services. We service furnaces, air conditioners, heat pumps, and boilers. We also provide geothermal HVAC, water heaters, and ductless mini-splits. To find out more about our preventative maintenance plans or schedule an AC tune-up, get in touch with Air Care Heating & Cooling now.
