It is the middle of the afternoon on a hot July day. You remember turning your air conditioning on this morning, but now you suspect the temperature in your house is rising. You run to check the thermostat in hopes that maybe you are just having a hot flash or had been working too hard on your tasks around the house, only to find your hopes dash. The thermostat has crept up five degrees over what you had set it for, or worse yet, the thermostat shows nothing. Sweat drips down your forehead and dollar signs flash before your eyes when you think of you’re a/c not working. Now what? Before you panic and call the HVAC service technician, there are a few things to check on your own.
1. Check the Power to your Home
It may seem simple, but many HVAC service technicians have been called to homes for a case of an air conditioning outage, only to find that there is no power to the entire home. This is embarrassing and expensive to the homeowner. Check this potential issue first before doing anything else.
2. Check the Air Filter
Air filters on your HVAC unit should be changed on a routine basis. Most require changing about every three months, though some require more frequent changes of once per month. If not changed as frequently as they should be, the air filters become clogged and can restrict the airflow causing your air conditioning unit to malfunction.
3. Check the Thermostat Batteries
If the display screen on your thermostat does not light up, it might be time to change the batteries.
4. Check the Circuit Breaker
Find your home’s breaker box and check the circuit breaker. If the breaker to the air conditioning unit or the entire HVAC system has been tripped you will need to reset the breaker. However, if the breaker trips again, you should call an electrician to look into the problem. Breakers were designed to trip for safety reasons.
If none of these solutions fix the problem, it is time to all a trusted HVAC service to diagnose HVAC problems. Anything beyond this and troubleshooting air conditioning should be left to the pros.
