While we are on track to open more businesses here in a couple of months, we’re still spending considerably more time in our homes than we have in prior years. With summer right around the corner and temperatures already on the rise, this means you have to ensure you have a fully functional and reliable air conditioner on your side.

How can you ensure this is the case? Well first off, if you haven’t already scheduled air conditioner maintenance, now is the time. Maintenance allows our technicians to fully inspect, clean, and adjust the components of your air conditioner to ensure that it works as effectively and efficiently as possible for as long as possible.

Even with maintenance, however, it’s never a bad idea to educate yourself on the signs that your air conditioner does, in fact, need repairs. Read on to learn what some of these signs are:

Your central air conditioning system shouldn’t make all that much noise, and your heat pump should run almost silently (note, we said almost—you’re going to hear the fan whirring and the air rushing through your vents). If you hear any odd sounds, such as squealing, hissing, screeching, or clanging, don’t brush the noise off. These are all indications of a problem that needs fixing.

This is a sign of poor indoor air quality, and while it may be true that what you actually need is an IAQ product like a whole house air filtration system, it can also be a sign that you have dirty ducts. In fact, ductwork can accumulate up to 40 pounds of dust per year in the average 6-room home!

This can be caused by a couple of different things. Weak airflow may be due to ductwork damage allowing conditioned air to escape before it reaches the rooms its intended for. Or low airflow can be caused by a blower fan not doing its job properly.

Either way, running your air conditioner and yet never having the conditioned air reach you living space is a waste of money, and is only causing your air conditioner to run longer than it should have to in order to reach the desired temperature.

Have you started running your air conditioner, only to notice that your energy bills have skyrocketed? We haven’t had much of a chance yet this spring for temperatures to get that hot, so if you’re paying August prices in April, that’s a problem! It’s a sign that something is causing the air conditioner to run inefficiently, and you should give our pros a call so we can get to the bottom of the problem.

The term short-cycling is used to describe when an HVAC system turns on and off rapidly, instead of going through regular cycles as it should. This is both the symptom of an AC problem that needs to be fixed, and can cause further problems with the air conditioner if not managed quickly enough.

Contact Greenleaf Heating & Cooling for quality AC repair in Cerritos, CA.