One of the most common home air conditioner or residential air conditioning issues faced by most people is the airflow issue. It is quite easy to figure out when a home air conditioning unit is going through airflow issues. You can check for the following symptoms in a residential air conditioning unit:
- One of the most initial signs of airflow issues is hot and cold spots.
- If you notice any strange whistling noises or unpleasant cold air flowing through the home air conditioning unit, that means there is pressure imbalance caused due to poor airflow.
- Sometimes you might notice no air flowing out or a weak airflow out of the vents of the residential air conditioning unit.
- When your air conditioning unit starts blowing hot air, this is when things are going downhill and there is either weak airflow or absolutely no airflow.
By ignoring these symptoms you are inviting compressor problems for your home air conditioning unit. The compressor is the equivalent of the human heart for the air conditioning unit. Once you mess it up, you will be required to get a new air conditioning installation done.
Most of these airflow issues are easy and inexpensive to fix. If there’s a severe issue that can’t be fixed by you, an air conditioning service technician must be hired for such a task.
Let’s take a look at the major causes of weak airflow and how you can avoid it:
- Blocked Vents: One easy way to increase the airflow through vents is by ensuring that all the vents and registers are open and not being blocked by anything. This kind of issue is more common in office settings, but if you notice such a thing in the house, then it must be removed because that can mess up your air conditioning airflow.
- Clogged Filters: Filters in an air conditioning unit have one of the most important tasks of removing dust from the air and keeping it out of the ducts and the air conditioning system. Once the filters are clogged and overloaded with dust, you will notice stuffy air and hot and cold spots.
So make sure you change these filters every few months. If you use your home air conditioning unit regularly then you may be required to change the filters every month.
- Blocked Ducts: The ductwork of an air conditioning unit accumulates a lot of dust. When this happens, the narrow ducts tend to get blocked quite easily. You may also notice rodents or birds building nests in HVAC ducts.
Due to some damage, the ductwork can also end up developing cracks or holes from where the air leaks out. All these kind of ductwork issues can lead to reduced or weak airflow. Get all your ducts inspected by an air conditioning service technician to check if a bit of cleaning can solve your problem.
- Dirty Coils: The condenser coils of your air conditioning unit also have one of the most important tasks to perform: releasing the heat that comes from your space. Being a part of the outdoor unit and exposed to all the outside heat and dust, the coils often get really dirty and then are not able to release the heat.
This requires your air conditioning unit to work harder in order to cool your space. Again, the airflow issues can arise due to these dirty coils. The coils on the outdoor unit of your air conditioner must be cleaned at least twice a year.
- Outdated Design: It might be unheard of for many people that HVAC designs can also be outdated. This happens if you have recently renovated or upgraded your space without adding similar upgradation to your air conditioning unit.
The cause of poor airflow can be the layout or the sizing of the ductwork may not be good enough to keep the newly designed space cool enough. Or maybe the equipment itself needs to be replaced with a new one.
- Oversized unit: This issue is more common than you can imagine. People often think that having a bigger unit is better for making the space cooler quickly. But it doesn’t work like that. Bigger is not better when it comes to HVAC sizing for your space.
When a unit is too large for space will not be able to run efficiently as it will end up turning on and off quite frequently. So it ends up not running long enough for to remove the humidity and make the space comfortable enough which ends up making the room feel stuffy.
Simple tricks to improve airflow:
- In order to maintain the residential air conditioning unit and avoiding any airflow issues, it is important you get preventive air conditioning maintenance done quire regularly.
- Some of the tasks can be done by you, the rest can be handled by an air conditioning service company or technicians like airflow measurement and testing to check the severity of the issue.
- Cleaning or replacing the air filters regularly.
- Cleaning the fan blades on your air home air conditioning unit.
- Inspect the motors and adjust them accordingly.
- Regularly inspect the ductwork on your home air conditioning installation for any leaks or blockages.
- Cleaning the coils on the outdoor unit of your air conditioner.
- Getting your air conditioning installation design checked and take into consideration any recommendations regarding the modifications of the design.
The bottom line
The air conditioning unit you use must be taken good care of and requires preventive maintenance quite regularly. This allows the unit to be in a good shape and provide you with fresh, cool air flow constantly. If the air conditioning unit starts to blow out air that’s not cool or fresh enough, it will create problems not only for your own health but for the health and well being of your air conditioning unit as well.
If you have recently noticed any of the aforementioned symptoms of airflow issues in your home air conditioning unit, you must get your unit checked as soon as possible before your air conditioner suffers a complete system failure.
Author Bio
Matthew Connery is a marketing consultant, working with Hamilton Air Conditioning Ltd., a UK based air-conditioning company providing high-quality installation, maintenance and repair services. He consistently contributes his valuable knowledge to the top blogging sites.
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