Times when you (and your AC) need to rest and relax

Have you ever overworked yourself before?

Maybe I should ask “When was the last time that you overworked yourself?”

You may have been hitting a deadline, getting caught up on something, or just being a parent to some cute (but crazy) little ones.

You push yourself and you push yourself, until you can’t- until you crash.

At that point, it’s too late. You have to take time to care for yourself. You have to take time to cool off, rest, and recover.

Believe it or not, this is exactly what happens to your AC unit.

When your AC unit is running and is pushing out cool air, but it’s just not pushing out very much air, it’s probably overworking itself.

And if it is, then  your indoor coil that sits on top of your furnace is likely freezing up.

And I’m not talking about a little bit of frost. I’m talking about a 3-5 pound block of ice!

So what do you do when this happens?

The first thing you need to do when this happens is go to your thermostat and change it from cool, AC, or auto. You want to change it to “OFF.”

This will let your coil start to thaw, but when it thaws it’s going to take a while and it might even drip water into the motor or the circuit boards.

So how do you prevent water damage?

You obviously don’t want to deal with water damage, so you’re also going to adjust the fan setting on your thermostat. You are going to set the fan to “ON” because this will get the ice to thaw much faster AND it will keep the water from dripping down into the motor.

So to recap…

You want your AC set to “OFF” and your fan set to “ON” (not AUTO).

All of this will get your unit to dethaw so that we can come take a look at it, and keep it from happening again.

So remember, if you (or your AC unit) are feeling stressed, be sure to let yourself unwind and dethaw a bit before you freeze up.

Hope this helps,

Western Heating + Air