While the heat will persist in Southern Arizona well into the fall, now’s a good time to start planning for preparing your home’s central air conditioner for the off season. This can mean different things for different types of systems, however.
If you use an air-source heat pump to provide both cooling and heating for your home, for example, your pre-winter routine won’t be the same as if you switch over to a furnace, space heating or some other heating strategy.
Following are several recommendations for getting your air conditioner ready for winter:
- Find a custom-made cover for your A/C’s outdoor unit. Don’t use any tarp or other covering that doesn’t have openings for ventilation. Trapped moisture can damage sensitive system components over a few months of disuse. Custom-made coverings come with small openings to allow for air movement. If you don’t want to get so elaborate, just lay a plywood board across the top of the outside unit. (Don’t cover the outside unit if it’s part of a heat-pump system.)
- Check (and if necessary, change) the A/C’s air filter, so it will be fresh and ready to go next spring. If you use a furnace as your central A/C’s air handler/blower, or have a heat pump system, just stay on your regular regimen of checking the air filter periodically (preferably monthly).
- When you schedule annual maintenance on your heating system this fall, ask the HVAC technician to also inspect and perform any necessary maintenance on your cooling system. Again, if you’re using a heat pump to perform double-duty, the changeover from summer to winter is an ideal time to schedule maintenance on the whole system.
- Clear the area around the outside A/C or heat pump unit of yard debris such as sticks, grass clippings and other small objects that can blow into the unit during high winds or storms. This is a good idea on a periodic basis throughout the year.
To discuss preparing your Tucson area home’s air conditioner for the heating season, please contact us at Hansberger Refrigeration and Electric Company.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Yuma, Arizona about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about air conditioners and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Guide or call us at 928-723-3183.
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