The 4 most common air conditioning faults

When we launch an air conditioner, for most users, understanding the function of all the buttons can be a real ordeal. Imagine how difficult it can be to detect the reason when the equipment gives a problem.

At Hogan Hot Water and Air, as experts in air conditioning installation, maintenance and repair, we know the magnitude and inconvenience that these breakdowns can cause. For this reason, so that this does not happen to you, today we are going to talk about air conditioning and its common problems, as well as its possible solutions. 

Split air conditioning breakdowns

As it is the most common both in private homes and in offices, we are going to focus on the breakdowns that usually appear on Split system. These are the units that have an indoor unit in charge of expelling the already cooled air into the room, and another outdoor unit that takes in the air to cool it down.

Once this is clarified, we are going to start with these drawbacks that may be familiar to you:

1. Filter maintenance

More than a problem as such, the maintenance of the air conditioning filters is a task that we must have controlled to prevent it from spoiling or the quality of the air that the device leaves in our room from worsening.

For this reason, it is important to keep the filters in perfect condition. For this, it is important to clean them approximately once a year. The filters are usually under the cover of the indoor unit of the air conditioner. To clean them we only have to lift a tab and remove them. It will be enough to put them under the tap and wait for them to dry completely before putting them back.

In this way we ensure that quality air reaches us and we avoid possible air conditioning failures.

2. Odor emission

It is relatively common that over time our air conditioning emits some odors. There are two reasons that are the most repeated in these cases.

The first of the reasons usually occurs when we use the air conditioning only in one period of the year, summer, for example. If during the rest of the year the device remains off, it is quite easy for some accumulated water to remain in the battery. This causes mold to form over time. Mold is the cause of this bad smell that we can perceive when we have not turned on the air conditioning for a long time.

The second reason that can cause our air conditioner to expel bad odors is the need to install a siphon in the equipment drain.

Both situations have a relatively simple solution, but one that is beyond the domain of the users, for this reason if you think that something like this may happen to your computers, we recommend that you contact a specialized air conditioning technician.

3. Lack of cold

If you notice that your air conditioning is working, but despite this it does not cool enough, it is possible that we are facing a fault. First we are going to comment on what may be the cause of this problem.

Before getting alarmed, we must check the state of the filters, it is possible that a lack of cleanliness prevents the air from circulating correctly. If this is not the problem, it may be because there is a leak in the circuit, in this case it may already be a lack of gas or refrigerant liquid that causes this lack of cold. Finally, and something more complicated, it may be due to the compressor not starting so we could have a fault in the fan motor.

With the exception of cleaning the filters, all other problems will require the assistance of an air conditioning technician. Despite this, it is also important to take into account the orientation of the room since this can influence it to be warmer and therefore we notice less the effect of the device, although it does not suffer any damage.

4. Excessive noise

This is the last of the failures that we will talk about today. It is not something strange that at a certain moment the air conditioning begins to emit some noise. This can have two main reasons.

The first one is the lack of gas or oil in the refrigeration line or in the compressor, it can also be due to the filters, but it is less common. If it is one of the first two cases and our air conditioning has been around for a long time, it is best to change it for a new one. As always, we recommend that you consult a technician who can advise you in a more specific way for your case.

The other reason may be that some external agent has entered the engine, such as a small nest. We can solve this by extracting and cleaning the area with the appliance off. So that this is not repeated, we can install a small mesh that prevents small birds from settling on the air conditioning.