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During my years working in home maintenance and as an independent handy man, I came to the realization that a large percentage of the population is throwing a significant amount of money away every time they run their air conditioner or furnace. The 2 main problem areas are dirty coils and air leaks. Just about every system I look at is dirty, leaky, or both.
I would like to stress the importance of these 2 problems. Dirty coils will make your A/C system work harder, and will make it much less efficient, and that Will reflect on your energy bill, not to mention more frequent repairs due to part failures. Trust me, you can save quite a bit of money if you just by checking and fixing these 2 areas once a year. Now, you can always hire an air conditioner repair service for this annual tune-up and I would recommend it. However, there are a couple of things to consider: One is the cost. Any air conditioner service can run $60.00 per hour per person not including parts. I know a licensed A/C man that charges between $400 and $500 dollars just to clean the interior coils. For that kind of money, you could just have brand new coils installed. The good news is most people can clean the coils if they are willing and simply cannot afford to have it done by a professional. Cleaning the exterior coils.
Luckily, cleaning the exterior air conditioner coils is easy. There should be a small box near the outside unit with a breaker or a disconnect. If it's a breaker, just turn it off. If it's a disconnect, you simply pull it out. Now there should be no power going to the unit. You can also turn off the breaker (for the air conditioner/furnace) at your main breaker just to be safe. Now grab you water hose with one of those pressure nozzles and blast all the dirt and dust off, starting from the top and working your way down. Be careful not spray any electrical components, which should be well covered anyway. If the coils where quite dirty, this alone will make you air conditioner run more efficiently. Cleaning the interior coils.
This can be a bit more tricky and I would not recommend doing it if you have a gas furnace. Call a professional to clean the interior coils and the unit if you have reservations about doing it yourself. You'll still save a considerable amount of money in the long run. You'll need a soft bristle brush and optionally a can of coil cleaner (available at your local home store) and a pump up garden sprayer. There should be at least 2 breakers on the air condition unit itself. Turn those and the ones in your breaker panel off. Next, there should be an access panel near the area where you see the copper air conditioner lines going in. Remove that and find the coils. They should look something like the image below, however there size and shape will vary, depending on the brand of unit. Image You'll want to find the side where the air goes through (the dirty side). Remove the excess dirt and dust with the brush. This step alone is significant, but to really clean them, you can treat them with the coil cleaner (following the directions), lightly scrub them in the direction of the fins (be very careful not to bend anything), and rinse them off with clean water using a pump-up garden sprayer. The water will drain into the drain pan where the condensation usually goes. Replace the access panel and seal it using the methods below. Sealing the leaks.
Materials: All purpose spray adhesive and aluminum air conditioner tape. Never use duct tape anywhere on your air conditioner. Remember, the tape used to seal the ducts and the unit goes through extreme temperature changes and is in a filthy environment...it will peal off eventually. The amount of leaks in your system depends largely on the age, the quality of the initial installation, and how many people have worked on it since. Remember when your dad told you to shut the door because he could not afford to air condition the world? Well, it's the same thing with leaks, even it's only a small amount. To check for leaks, turn on the Fan switch and feel for leaks all around the unit and ducts (especially and the connections). Remove all the old tape in any leaky locations and spray the area with the adhesive (according to manufacturer directions). Now apply the quality aluminum tape until the area is sealed. Seal ALL leaks in this manner. Depending on the condition of your system, you may notice a vast improvement in the amount of air flow when you run the air conditioner or furnace. This tune-up may seem difficult, but it's easy after the first time around. Now you can use all that money your saving to pay for gas.
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Home Maintenance Tips 