Air Conditioning Mistakes to Avoid

Are you getting the most out of your air conditioning unit? Use these helpful hints to stay cool while conserving energy and money. The worst kind of summer weather to experience is hot, humid, and muggy. It’s worse when you turn to your air conditioner for comfort and discover it isn’t working. Or maybe it is, but you’re concerned that your electricity bill might soar.

Don’t be concerned! We’ll go through a few typical air conditioning blunders that you might be making at home. Fixing these problems would lead to faster cooling, more warmth, less wasted energy, and lower cooling bills.

Incorrectly Sized Air Conditioning Unit

Before even switching on the air conditioner for the first time, you might make the worst mistake possible. Air conditioning window systems are built with a certain amount of “air volume” in mind. If your room is too large or too small for the device, it won’t work. Also, don’t buy an air conditioner that’s too large. An overly large air conditioner can blow out a lot of cold air, but it won’t stay on long enough to dehumidify the room. The room can feel muggy and colder than it really is due to the residual humidity.

Opening your Windows and Doors

Here’s how air conditioners perform in a nutshell. The air conditioning unit draws warm air from the atmosphere and then runs it over a refrigerant. Which collects the heat, and then blows the now-cooled air back into the room. While the absorbed heat is blown out the back of the unit.

This is why window air conditioners must be installed in a closed window, or piped externally. Central air conditioners must be installed outside the building. In order for the air conditioning to operate, the “inside air” and the “outside air” must be separated. When the windows or doors are open, the heat that is ejected will simply be reintroduced.

Keeping the Air Conditioning on All the Time

Assume you leave for work at 8:00 a.m. and return home at 5:00 p.m. Your perfect home temperature is 22 degrees Celsius. Is it more energy-efficient (i.e. less expensive) to run the air conditioner on at 22 degrees all day? Should you leave it turned off and then turn it back on when you return?

Most people believe the first approach is superior. Although the second one requires less energy, and the savings can be substantial. Check out our article on digital thermostats if you’d like a few more helpful cost-saving tips and tricks when it comes to your thermostat.

Setting the Temperature too Low

After a hard day at work, you walk into your house only to be greeted by a dense wall of stale 32°C air. So, how do you go about it? You could turn the air conditioner down to 18 degrees Celsius. In order to get the room to cool down quicker. Although that is not how air conditioning functions.

The air conditioning unit pumps out the same “power” of cool air if your room is 32 degrees or 18 degrees. The temperature setting just tells the machine when to avoid pumping cold air out. Moving it from 32 degrees to 18 degrees won’t make it faster. The air conditioner would continue running after it hits the preferred temperature! If your target temperature is 22°C and you set the thermostat to 18°C, the appliance will run until the room reaches 18°C. At which point you’ll be too cold and have lost a lot of electricity.

So, adjust the air conditioner to your preferred temperature and relax. Try having a smart or programmable thermostat if you’re tired of coming home to a stuffy atmosphere.

Leaving Rooms and Air Conditioning Vents Open

Remember how window units are made to cool air with a certain amount of “air volume” in mind? The space that these air conditioning units are meant to cool is based on the assumption that all doors are shut. Lets say your bedroom is 400 square feet, and you leave the door open whilst the appliance is running. Cold air will escape and warm air will infiltrate. In consequence, the device is attempting to cool both the air inside and outside of your room!

Keep the doors closed in every space with a window unit working to optimise performance. This will restrict the amount of air that needs to be cooled to only that space. As well as speed up the cooling process. What about a central air conditioning unit? Air conditioning vents are likely to be found in any room of your home. If you have all of your vents open, the central unit is attempting to cool each and every one of those rooms.

The greater the amount of air space that has to be cooled, the longer it takes to cool. This also means that the machine would have to run for longer periods of time. Resulting in lost resources and higher bills. Closed vents isolate rooms from the central appliance. Therefore lowering the overall volume of air that must be cooled. This accelerates the ventilation of rooms with open vents.

Not Circulating Air with a Fan

When it’s warm, most people use a fan, and when it’s humid, they turn on the air conditioner. However, fans and air conditioners should not be considered mutually exclusive. In reality, air conditioners perform best when paired with fans. Especially ceiling fans with remote controls.

Cool air condenses in the areas where it is blown out. If you have a window air conditioning unit, the area directly in front of the device is the coolest. The coolest parts of central air conditioners are right near the vents. To cool the remainder of the air in the room, you can wait for thermal transition. Or you can use a fan to push the cooled air to circulate. As an example; In a bottle of water, drop a drop of blue food colouring. It might take hours for the colour to seep into the water. However, once you stir it the dye spreads out in a matter of seconds. This is the same principle behind air conditioning rooms in your home.

Neglecting to Change the AC Filter

There are contaminants floating about in the air that get sucked into the air conditioning device during service. No matter how sterile your room is. Both air conditioners have particle filters to keep these particles from having internal issues.

For maximum air conditioning performance, a clean filter is essential. Since particle buildup limits airflow, the device must work harder to draw in the same amount of air. Under the worst-case scenario, a clogged filter will raise the energy cost by up to 15%. Not to mention the increased risk of maintenance problems.

If your air conditioner runs 24 hours a day, check the filter at least once a month. If you don’t use it much, replace the filter after three months. You can clean and rinse the filters on certain window units, so you’ll need to buy new filters if they get dirty. For a further look into how often you should change your air conditioning filter, and other details worth getting into check out this article.

Give us a call if you need any help, maintenance or advice with air conditioning in your home. Make your space as comfortable as it should be by avoiding the above air conditioning mistakes this upcoming hot summer!