The warranty on your air conditioner may require that you have your AC maintained by a professional at least once a year. Regular maintenance is essential for protecting your equipment from damage. An air conditioner is under a lot of strain during the hottest days of the summer, but the equipment is made to continue working as long as the parts are in good shape and the equipment is clean. Here are some important air conditioning maintenance services you should have done each year.

Test The Refrigerant Pressure

The proper level of refrigerant is needed or your AC can't cool down your home. Copper refrigerant lines can be punctured or develop pinholes. The holes allow refrigerant to leak out, and even a small loss could affect the functioning of your equipment. If the maintenance technician finds that the pressure is out of range, they can track down the problem and arrange for repairs to be done if needed.

Clean The Evaporator Coils

The evaporator coil in the air handler needs to be as clean as possible all of the time so the refrigerant can cool your home. When dust builds up, the coil may even freeze over until it gets cleaned off. The maintenance technician will check the coil and clean it if needed. Sometimes, the coil has to be removed from the air handler so it gets cleaned well. You can help keep dust off the coil by changing the HVAC filter on schedule.

Service The Condenser

The condenser may need to be cleaned during the maintenance call. Since it's outside, the condenser can accumulate leaves, tree debris, and even insects and rodents. Besides cleaning out debris, the maintenance technician may need to hose down the sides of the condenser to get debris out of the fins and to clean off the condenser coils.

The condenser has wiring and electronic parts the technician might check, too. They can check the thermostat wire, capacitors, and contactor to make sure the proper amount of power is getting to the condenser fan motor and compressor.

Test The Thermostat

A thermostat can get dusty or malfunction due to loose wiring. The wires from the thermostat go all the way outside to the condenser where they might get chewed on by mice. The maintenance technician may open up the thermostat and test it with a multimeter to look for problems. They may also test or calibrate it to verify it is working properly.

After you've had air conditioning maintenance services, you can feel confident your equipment can make it through a long summer season without fail. The last thing you want when it's hot and humid outside is for the inside of your house to be miserably hot and sticky, too.

Contact a local HVAC technician if you need air conditioning maintenance services.