Photo By fongleon356 at Shutterstock

There’s nothing like spending a warm summer day at home with the air conditioner on — unless, of course, the air conditioner goes out when you need it the most.

Unfortunately, in a place like Cleveland, TN, the idea of having to go without the AC while waiting for a heating and air conditioning service to arrive sounds like the quickest way to ruin a summer day. But it’s a part of owning a home that everyone has to go through at least once, right?

Actually, it isn’t. If you’re paying close attention, you can spot when your HVAC needs a few minor repairs before the system stops working entirely. If you catch them in time, you’ll make it much easier and cheaper for a heating and air conditioning service to take care of the problem and prevent a recurrence. Here are just a few signs that your air conditioner needs to be serviced right away!

Warm Air

If you’ve ever been sitting at home and found that the temperature started rising out of nowhere, you’ve probably recognized that you’ve got a problem of some kind with your HVAC system. In some situations, the problem will go away on its own without you needing to call for a service, but during a Tennessee summer, you usually won’t have time to wait it out for the air conditioner to thaw.

Instead, it’s a good idea to call for assistance as soon as you start to notice a disparity between the inside temperature and the setting you’ve set the thermostat to reach. If there’s a difference of more than a couple degrees and you haven’t just changed the temperature, you’ve likely got a real problem with your system. Most likely, your system has frozen over, and if that’s the case, you’re probably going to need a heating and air conditioning service to help get the temperature under control that day.

Low Air Flow

Your air conditioner should have no problem clearing warm air out of the entire building, and it should constantly feel like air is flowing in your home. If it starts to feel stuffy inside your home, there’s a good chance that you’ve got a blockage somewhere with your HVAC.

Unfortunately, the air inside your home is usually much less clean than the air from outside, and that means that your HVAC is constantly sucking dirt and debris into its inner workings. Over time, unless you’re changing your air filter regularly, the HVAC is going to end up overwhelmed and find itself taking dirt into its inner workings.

Once dirt and debris starts to enter the HVAC system’s interior, it’s very difficult to remove it without the help of a professional service. Before things get to that point, it’s smart to check your air filter and make sure that it’s up to the job of cleaning your air.

Frequent AC Cycles

A few cycles for your air conditioner are completely normal. Your air conditioner needs to sound and feel like it’s running. If you don’t feel cool air coming into your home, you’ve likely got an issue that you’ll need a heating and air conditioning service to fix.

But if you hear the cycle restarting itself too often, you’ve still got a problem on your hands. Unless you have a day where the temperature is constantly fluctuating, your home isn’t supposed to need the HVAC to start its cycle over and over. That’s a sign that your air conditioner isn’t operating anywhere near as efficiently as it should, and that’s going to mean higher electric bills at best and the cost of a new air conditioner at worst.

If the cycles become frequent enough for you to constantly notice when they restart, it’s time to call for a professional heating and air conditioning service before things get out of control.

Indoor Humidity

Your Cleveland, TN home is going to be many things during the summer, but one thing that it should never be is humid. When your air conditioner is working properly, it shouldn’t have any trouble removing moisture from the air and cycling it back through the system. But when things aren’t working the way they should, your HVAC might fail to properly regulate the humidity inside the house.

Why is that a problem? Besides the obvious problems of comfort, humidity can also create an ideal atmosphere for mold spores to grow. When warm, humid air finds its way to the inside of your HVAC and doesn’t get cycled through properly, the parts of your air conditioner might become coated with moisture, which can attract mold spores and ruin your system’s efficiency. As soon as you notice any humidity inside, you need to contact a heating and air conditioning service immediately.

Strange Noises or Odors

This should be just like owning a car or other electrical appliance: when something doesn’t look, smell or sound right, there’s probably a serious problem going on. If you’ve owned your home for long enough, you probably don’t need a heating and air conditioning service team to tell you what the HVAC should or shouldn’t smell or sound like.

Luckily, this is the easiest problem of all to diagnose, because all you have to do is trust your senses. If you hear or smell something from your HVAC that’s completely out of the ordinary, you know that it’s time to call for a heating and air conditioning service that you trust.

At Metro Plumbing, Heating and Air, we know that summer is the most important time of the year for the air conditioner at your home. We know that our customers count on us to provide top-quality heating and air conditioning service, and we’re proud to spot problems and fix them to keep our customers in comfort all year long. When something doesn’t seem right with your air conditioner, give us a call; we’ll come take care of it right away!