Brown's Heating & Cooling Blog: Posts Tagged ‘AC Repair’

How to Detect an AC Refrigerant Leak (And Why This Matters)

Monday, September 14th, 2020
refrigerant-line-behind-air-conditioner

There’s a fairly common misconception about AC refrigerant that often leads homeowners to mistakenly put their climate control systems in harms way. What is that misconception? That refrigerant is a fuel.

Yup, many people think that refrigerant depletes from an air conditioner like gasoline does from a car. This is a dangerous misconception, unfortunately. That is, it’s dangerous for the air conditioner itself. The problem is, if your air conditioner is losing refrigerant, it means there is a leak. And if there’s a leak, a number of problems can occur, not excluding a complete air conditioner break down. So what should you do about it?

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6 Sounds You Don’t Want Your AC Making

Monday, August 17th, 2020
woman-listening-closely-with-hand-to-ear

With the way technology is going, it seems like by now there’d be a way for our air conditioners to diagnose themselves when there is a problem, and shoot us a text message telling us what the problem is. This actually probably isn’t too far off in the future, but for now, it’s not a reality.

This means that homeowners have to rely on other methods to detect the warnings their cooling systems are sending out. Maybe it is a drop in cooling power, or an unexpectedly high utility bill. Or, you may have HVAC circuit breakers that are constantly tripping.

One of the most common signs, however, that something is amiss with your cooling system is strange sounds. A “strange” sound is really anything outside of the normal noises you hear when your AC runs. You hear it every day, so if something alarming comes up, it’s best not to ignore it.

We’ve listed six of the most common sounds people call us about, below.

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“What Is Short-Cycling, And Is It Really That Bad?”

Monday, July 20th, 2020

Residential air conditioners go through a lot throughout the years, particularly in our area. Wear and tear can lead to issues like refrigerant leaks, failed capacitors, and even breached air ducts. Fortunately, most of these repairs can be pretty simply fixed by our technicians and even prevented with routine maintenance.

There’s one thing that natural wear and tear shouldn’t lead to though, and that’s short-cycling. Wondering what short-cycling is?

Listen to your air conditioner–really listen to it! When the compressor cycles on, it should do so long enough for the temperature in the room to reach the desired setting on your thermostat. If it doesn’t reach this temperature, but cycles back off, only to cycle back on and repeat the failed process a few minutes later then it is short-cycling. Why does this matter?

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