2 Things You Can Do To Troubleshoot Your AC
When your air conditioner isn't working, you can get really steamy under the collar. Summers are just getting hotter, which just makes you depend on your air conditioner more. When it does stop working, you should do a couple of things to troubleshoot it to see if you can get it running quickly. If you can eliminate some of the things that could be causing the problem, when the service tech comes to your house, they will be able to figure out what the problem is quicker.
Check Your Thermostat
One of the things that you can do to troubleshoot your air conditioner is to check your thermostat. Inside your thermostat is a sensor that sends a signal to the air conditioner to turn on when a certain temperature happens. If you set your thermostat for 72, then when the sensor detects that the temperature is at 74, it will send a signal to the air conditioner to turn on. When the air temperature gets down to 72, the thermostat will send a signal for the air conditioner to turn off. You can check to see if the thermostat is working correctly by turning it as cold as possible. Your thermostat should trigger the air conditioner to turn on. It may take a few moments to happen. If it doesn't turn on, then contact an air conditioning repair service for help.
Blocked Condenser
The condenser unit is the outside part of your air conditioner. If it gets blocked, then the unit can't pull air into the unit, which means it can't use the condenser coils to transfer the heat from your house out into the great outdoors. It is easy for the condenser to start to get blocked because it is so exposed to the elements. Grass clippings, weed, dirt, and debris can all get caught up in the fins of the condenser. You can try cleaning it out yourself. Go out to the unit and pull out the bigger pieces of debris you see, and then you can get the hose and spray the unit with your hose to wash everything down. Make sure that the unit is off before you spray it down. Then turn the AC back on and see if it kicks on.
If you have tried everything you can to get your air conditioner running and it still isn't on, then you need to call an HVAC service company so that they can send a tech out to your house and get your cold air back on.