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Cottonwood seeds can cause all sorts of damage with your Air Conditioner Condenser. This unit was one of the lucky ones that we were able to clean and get back to good working condition. We needed to completely disassemble the outer casing, clean the coils out, and reassemble everything.
When the Condenser coils get clogged like this a few things happen.
The air conditioner starts and runs. as it runs the unit begins to heat up which causes the high side pressure to rise. as the pressure rises the freon inside of the coils does not get cooled down adequately which in turn does not allow the refrigerant to atomize properly in the evaporator coil, which means no cooling.
These high head pressures can cause compressor failure in the condenser.
These high pressures can cause factory welded braze joints to burst especially on the newer micro channel coils as offered by todays equipment manufacturers.
All of these problems can mean big expenditures for you as the homeowner. This wasn't as much of a failure problem with the old systems that ran on R-22 Freon as it is with the newer systems that run on R-410a Freon due to the fact that R-410a operates at already very high head pressures, meaning there isn't a whole lot of room for fluctuations in operating perimeters. R-22 on the other hand operates at much lower pressures, thereby allowing a lot of room for variances.
As the homeowner, if you allow your air conditioner to run this way for an extended period of time there is the great possibility that you will need to call someone for very expensive repairs such as coil replacement, compressor replacement, and or condenser replacement. at the very least you will need to call a service company to come and do a complete cleaning of your condenser.
So, how can you avoid these costs?
Shut you AC down.
Spray the outside condenser down with a garden hose, spraying in an up and down vertical motion until you can see that the coils are clear of debris.
Clear away any weeds or items that are within 18 inches of your condenser unit.
Don't forget to check and change the filter in your furnace while your at it.
Turn the Air Conditioner back on and you should be good to go.
Check at least once a month to make sure that the coils are clean. If they are not repeat the procedure.
That should be a great start to a regimen of general AC maintenance for you to keep your equipment running strong and to keep your hard earned money in your pocket where it belongs instead of paying for expensive break downs.
If you do not feel comfortable in performing these tasks on your own or you simply don't have the time, we at James Heating Cooling And More would be more that happy to take care of this for you. We also offer our Maintenance Agreement. Twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall we will come out, clean and inspect your equipment, give them a full tune up, and give you peace of mind.