Derek Cole explains why HVAC systems need maintenance every six months. Just 1/20th of an inch of dirt cuts efficiency by over 20%, turning a new 14-SEER unit into a much weaker system. Skipping filters, coil cleaning, and capacitor checks can lead to expensive failures when you need cooling or heat most.
Maintenance twice a year is very important. As far as servicing a new unit, and we get this question a lot, and there's some misinformation, and we've gotten the comment quite a few times of, "Hey, the unit's brand new. Why do I need to service it 6 months in, 1 year in? Why do I need to keep doing that?" Well, the units today are so efficient. I mean, you're at a 14 SEER minimum you have to install today. Or they can make today, and you got 15, 16 sear going on. So what that translates to is the aluminum or the copper, depending on the brand, is so thin. According to the EPA, 1/20th of an inch of dirt can drop your efficiency by over 20%. So if you just bought a 14 sear unit 6 months ago and you don't have it cleaned out, you know, at 6 months or at a year, you don't have it done, well, you don't have a 14 SEER unit anymore. That's not me saying it, that's the EPA saying it. So if you take an inch, slice it up 20 times, and that is how a little bit of dirt can affect your efficiency. So it's very important to keep it maintained, keep it clean, and to keep it checked. You do it twice a year because you do— you want to do it for the— and check the heating and check the cooling. Now, as long as you get it done every 6 months, it doesn't matter when in that aspect it happens, but it does need to happen because in this part of the country, a lot of things that go wrong, a lot of things that happen in the summertime, were things that could have been prevented with maintenance. Changing filters, dirty coils, dirty blower wheels, which is causing the blower motor to go out. Or causing the capacitor to overheat and then it goes out. All these things can be checked on maintenance and it can save you a lot of time and it's going to save you time and money on top of that because your unit's not breaking down when it's 95 degrees outside or when it's 20 degrees outside. Your unit's not breaking down. Now the maintenance is a preventive measure. It's not saying it's never going to happen. But at least you're catching— it's like changing the oil in your car. At least you're checking things as you go versus not changing the oil, not getting a checkup, and then 5 years later you have a breakdown and you're on the side of the road. So same kind of situation. So yes, very important. That was a long answer to this question, but it's very important to keep it maintained. This— your unit runs a lot more than your vehicle does. Your unit takes up over half of the energy in your home, so keeping it maintained and efficient and checked is very critical to make sure you're not wasting money and you're not having an unexpected breakdown when it happens. Um, again, a lot of things we saw this summer— capacitors. I mean, we changed out a lot of weak capacitors. Capacitor is kind of like, um, if you're spinning the ball on your finger— you've all done that before— you have this hand here, but making the ball rotate. Okay, well, that's kind of like a capacitor. It's still making the motor go. So once that goes out, the ball falls down. So once your capacitor goes out, your unit's not working. So all these things can be checked, can be read ahead of time to make sure You're good to go. All right. That was a long answer. How long was that? Hey.
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