Touchstone Heating & Air Inc. Blog: Posts Tagged ‘Air Conditioning Maintenance’

Before Your AC Really Gets to Work, Find Out If Anything Is Wrong With It

Monday, March 20th, 2023
time-service-clock

It’s time to start thinking about the heat. Not just the warmer weather of spring, but the real scorching days of midsummer. Right now is the best time to make sure that you have an air conditioning system in your home that can handle the intense Florida heat.

“My AC has worked fine before,” you might say. “What will stop it from working fine again?”

Past performance isn’t a good guide to future results, especially when you consider the wear and tear an AC in Florida goes through. Your air conditioning system may have hidden malfunctions you don’t know about. Before you throw your AC into the hottest weather of the year, it pays to know if anything isn’t right with it. Scheduling timely AC repair in Wellborn, FL or elsewhere in North Central Florida will save you from dealing with your cooling system failing abruptly when you need it the most.

Continue Reading

Welcome March! And Welcome Air Conditioning Maintenance!

Monday, March 6th, 2023
spring-picutre-of-honeybee-and-flower

The month of March means the end of winter and the beginning of spring. That doesn’t necessarily mean an immediate change to spring weather, but warm weather is never far away here in Florida. 

March is a great time to think about how you’ll keep your house comfortable throughout the steady heat of the middle of the year. For all of us at Touchstone, this when we get to work helping customers with air conditioning maintenance. This is one of the most important services we offer, because it helps our customers enjoy the best performance from their cooling systems and get the largest return on their investment in home comfort. Maintenance eliminates most of the problems an AC may have. Best of all, it bestows peace of mind for our customers who don’t want to get trapped with a broken AC in the middle of a July heatwave. 

Continue Reading

What Happens If I Run My AC Without Its Filter?

Monday, July 25th, 2022
pleated-air-filter

We place special emphasis on a maintenance task that homeowners can do on their own to help their air conditioning systems: regularly change the air filter. After a span of one to three months, this filter will pick up enough dust and debris that it will choke off airflow into the HVAC system. This leads to numerous troubles:

  • A drop in energy efficiency leading to higher electricity bills
  • Strain on the blower fan motor that can make it overheat and trip the circuit breaker
  • Low airflow from the vents
  • Reduced cooling power
  • Infiltration of dust and debris into the AC unit, leading to damage

And you might think, “Well, if a clogged air filter is such a bother, why not run the AC without the filter?” We hope you don’t actually try this, because that air filter does an important job. If you run your air conditioner for any length of time without the air filter, you risk serious damage to the cooling system and AC repair in High Springs, FL—or even a full replacement.

Continue Reading

It’s Spring—And That Means It’s the Season for an AC Tune-Up!

Monday, April 4th, 2022
AC-plastic-grate

No matter where you live, one of the best parts about spring is seeing the days lengthen, the flowers bloom, and the weather get warmer. At the same time, homeowners understand that spring is also a time to consider routine maintenance around the house. Many of us look at our homes to see if they need work, such as loose shingles, peeling paint, damaged windows, or clogged gutters.

But what about our HVAC system? For too many of us, the air conditioner is an unseen force that keeps us comfortable in the summer months. Nonetheless, an HVAC system also needs maintenance. Let’s look at the benefits of AC maintenance in Lake City, FL.

Continue Reading

Can My Air Conditioner Rust?

Monday, November 15th, 2021
old-ac-unit

Anything made of ferrous metal can potentially rust, and that includes your air conditioning system. Is this a common occurrence that you should worry about? And how would rust start to develop on an AC in the first place? We’ll get into that below, as well as help you know when you should call our team for AC repair in Lake City, FL.

Continue Reading

6 Common Causes of an AC Become Inefficient

Monday, September 20th, 2021
air-conditioner-money-saver

A great air conditioning system does more than keep your house cool. It keeps your house cool without wasting energy. In other words, it runs efficiently

But the same way that an AC can start to decline and provide less cool air, it can also start to become inefficient and waste energy. The two don’t even have to go together: you might still enjoy ideal comfort from your air conditioner yet see a tremendous rise in utility bills. If you have a problem with an inefficient air conditioner, you may need AC repair in Macclenny, FL—or possibly a new air conditioner!

We’ll look at six ways an AC can become inefficient. 

Continue Reading

Is Late Summer Too Late for AC Maintenance? No!

Monday, August 23rd, 2021
ac-technician-washing-unit

Did you forget to have maintenance done for your home’s air conditioning system in the spring? You may think that if you missed that window, you might as well skip it for the rest of the year. After all, it’s late summer, and if the air conditioner has already gotten this far… 

We’re glad we’re here to stop that train of thought before you put off AC maintenance for a whole year. It’s late summer, but that doesn’t mean AC maintenance is a dead issue for the year. What might end up dead is your air conditioner, and far earlier than you expect, if you let maintenance slide. Spring is the best time to have a professional tune-up and inspect your air conditioner because it prepares it for the entire warm season, but if you get it done later it’s much better than never. 

Continue Reading

Want to Pay Less to Cool Your House This Summer?

Monday, April 19th, 2021

MoneySummer weather means higher electricity bills for your house. There’s no way to avoid a rise in costs because the compressor that allows an AC to provide cooling draws on a great deal of power when it runs. The average central air conditioning system uses around 3,000 to 3,5000 watts an hour, adjusted up and down depending on the AC’s size. How much this costs you is predicated on the price of electricity in your area.

As a comparison, if you run the AC in “fan only” mode where the compressor does not turn on, it uses 750 watts an hour on average. This will give you an idea of the increase in electrical use that is part and parcel of running an air conditioner.

However, you might be paying more to cool your house than you should. In fact, you likely are, because there are many ways you can pay less for central cooling that don’t mean having to sacrifice your comfort and sweat it out all summer. Below are a few ways to cut down on the high cost of summer cooling.

Continue Reading

The End of Maintenance? You May Need a New AC

Monday, March 8th, 2021

ac-units-scrapyardIn our past two posts, we wrote about the importance of having regular AC maintenance each spring. We could post plenty more about this topic, since it’s that important—you can have most of your potential AC problem vanish thanks to keeping up with maintenance. There is one AC problem you can’t avoid this way, however, which is that the time will come when your air conditioner must be replaced. Maintenance will postpone that day, but no cooling system can last forever, no matter how much care it receives.

This year might be the year. You schedule maintenance with our technicians, we examine the AC, and explain that it’s not likely to last much longer unless it has expensive repairs—repairs that won’t be worth it compared to replacing it with a new AC.

Continue Reading

What Can Go Wrong With an AC That Isn’t Maintained

Monday, February 22nd, 2021

old-acOur last post was our annual reminder about scheduling air conditioning maintenance every spring—or a bit before spring for Florida because of the way our seasons work. But we aren’t finished with all we have to say about AC maintenance yet. It’s important enough for a second reminder as well as some more in-depth information about what makes maintenance so critical.

So we’re going to go into “scary mode” in this post. We’re not alarmists, but when it comes to air conditioning in Alachua, FL, we’re experts who have seen what can go wrong when an AC isn’t given regular professional care. We want you to avoid these problems, so putting a bit of a scare into you is healthy. It’s much better than being trapped with no AC on a 90°F + day!

Continue Reading