Customers contact us all the time with no heat or no AC in their home or business. We’re happy to help them out, heck, that’s what we do. However, there are several things you can do to reduce the number of nuisance calls you have to make over something, quite frankly, you could fix yourself. While we hate to take away some of our work, as our customer, we have a responsibility to help you save money. So, in no particular order, here are 8 things you can do that can either eliminate or reduce the number of times we will need to come visit you.
8 Items to check before calling the Good Guys
- Circuit breakers in the electric panel
- Air filters in the indoor unit
- Batteries in the thermostat
- Debris around the outdoor unit
- Frost on pipes in the summer
- Water under the inside unit/clogged drain
- Oil or propane level in tank
- Power switch on indoor unit/disconnect on outdoor unit
The first 4 are pretty easy to check and correct on your own if you’re so inclined. #5 can be a little more tricky. So what does it mean when your pipes are icing up? It can mean several things. It could be restricted air flow preventing the proper transfer of heat in the refrigerant lines. It could also mean something trickier like a leak in the system. If the filter is clean, you need an HVAC tech to check it out. In either case, turn of the unit and let the frozen pipes thaw before we get there. That will reduce the amount of time the technician will need to be on site.
If there is water under the unit as in #6, it usually means a clogged condensate drain but, it could also be a leaking humidifier or several other potential items. If you can see that the drain is clogged, attempt to unclog it and see if that eliminates the water issue.
Items #7 and #8 are also fairly self-explanatory but amazingly enough, we arrive at homes on a regular basis to find a bone-dry tank. Make sure you are keeping an eye on fuel levels, especially in the winter.
So, there you go. 8 simple things to check before you call us. You still need to schedule us in for regular maintenance on your HVAC equipment to avoid expensive repairs, be more energy efficient and extend the life of your equipment.