Before You Call: Troubleshooting Your Air Conditioning to Save Money
Here at JP Heating & Air Conditioning, we pride ourselves on our dedication to serving Kalamazoo and the surrounding area in all of its heating and cooling needs. For that reason, we offer 24-hour emergency service for any heating or cooling crisis you might be facing—and we plan on standing by that policy. Yet, while we at JP are always glad to help, we recognize that calling us in could mean spending time and money that you’d rather hold on to. For that reason, we’re following up on last month’s blog post, where we discussed the steps you can take at home when troubleshooting furnace failure. This time, though, we’ll be focusing on air conditioning repair and troubleshooting that you can do at home to save yourself time and money.
Checking for the Basics
Before anything else, it’s important to double check that your thermostat is set below room temperature. While it may seem silly, it’s happened to the best of us that we’ve attempted a complicated repair when, really, the simplest answer was the correct one. Once that’s done, also check to make sure that the switch on the side of your air conditioner is set to the “On” position. Then, similar to with your furnace, you’ll want to check to see if the circuit breaker is “On” and untripped. You can tell if the circuit breaker is tripped because the switch for your AC will neither be fulling “On” or “Off,” but instead somewhere in between. If you have a set of red “windows” on your circuit breakers, you’ll be able to tell if a circuit is tripped because it will be discolored. Once you’ve determined that a circuit is broken, you’ll want to fully reset it by switching it all the way to “Off,” then all the way to “On.” If you only switch it to on, you will not reset the circuit breaker, and could end up misdiagnosing the problem.
Checking the Fuse Box
If you’ve reached this point and still have not been able to fix the issue, then we recommend disconnecting the power before beginning the next step. Once the power to your AC is disconnected, go ahead and check the fuses to see if they’re working properly. Like with your furnace, you’ll know that a fuse is blown if the fuse is cloudy, discolored, or appears to have broken wiring. Again like with your furnace, you’ll need to replace your fuse with one of equal wattage and size in order to restore your AC unit to proper working order. Be careful, though: we recommend drying your hands and arms before replacing the fuse for your own safety.
Other Factors
If you’ve completed all the applicable above steps and still haven’t had any luck, don’t lose hope just yet. At this point, there are still a few checks you can do to try and fix your AC. First, check to see if the compartment covers are secured and fastened, double checking for any give they might have. If they’re not secure, go ahead and investigate for the cause before securing them again. Afterward, we recommend checking the air filter to see if its clean. If the air filter on your AC isn’t clean, it might not only be the cause of your cooling issues, but could also explain some suspiciously high electricity bills you may have been having recently. If your AC’s air filter is dirty, it takes more energy for your AC to reach the designated temperature, which means a higher energy bill for you. Finally, just double check to see if the grills on your AC unit are blocked by leaves or other debris.
If you’ve completed each of these steps and still don’t have your air conditioning in proper working order, don’t fret. Like we said before, we at JP Heating & Air Conditioning are available 24/7 for emergency service. Simply give us a call at (269) 345-1843 and we’ll be over as quickly as possible. We look forward to hearing from you!
