How often should you do a basic maintenance check-up on your heating and cooling systems?
Your heating-and-cooling systems should be serviced twice a year. If you are servicing only heating or cooling, you can do basic maintenance for either once a year. You do it to ensure that normal wear-and-tear doesn’t cause energy efficiency, and you want to fix a problem (e.g. replace a defective part) before it worsens and you land up having to spend much more in the long term in repairs and energy inefficiency.
While you can generally do your own basic maintenance, it’s important to seek the help of an experienced service contractor for annual or bi-annual check-ups, once your labor warranty has expired. A more comprehensive system check-up should be done once your installation reaches the five-to-seven year mark.
You’ll see different HVAC providers with different number of inspection points, but whoever you engage to do your maintenance, or if you decide to do the maintenance yourself, make sure that at the very least, these inspection points are covered:
Electrical connections. Your technician should measure current and voltage of all motors. It’s unsafe to have faulty electrical connections, and it can also cause more wear and tear on key components.
Gas/Oil connections, gas pressure, heat exchanger. Problems in these connections can become fire hazards. If your heat exchanger is cracked or damaged, it can also cause unhealthy conditions — the heat exchanger in your HVAC essentially moves heat from your furnace to your duct-work and if it has cracks, fumes can leak into your living spaces.
Condensation drain line. An obstructed central AC condensation drain line can impede performance . In the worst case scenario, this can cause water damage in the house as water is unable to drain and starts to pool. In the warm months, mold can also grow in and around the drain line, causing deterioration of the line and also creating blockage.
Lubrication of main moving parts. When moving parts in your system are under-lubricated, Parts that lack lubrication experience friction and this increases electricity usage.
Evaporator and Condenser air conditioning coils. These should be checked for wear and tear as well, which is a common reason for poor performance and high energy use.
AC Refrigerant level. There is an optimum level of refrigerant for energy efficiency. Low refrigerant levels can cause indoor coils to freeze, leading to water damage. High refrigerant levels will significantly increase the chances of a compressor burnout. Note: this section of your system is hermetically sealed and does not have to be refilled with refrigerant. If there are low levels of refrigerant, it means that there is a leak that needs to be addressed.
Blower components. These have to be cleaned so that the airflow from your system is maximized. Airflow problems are a common cause of system inefficiency.
Controls. Starting, stopping and starting up the system again is usually done to determine whether there are any glitches in the system controls. We typically check for proper voltage and amperage of key control system components.
Changing filters. This is the most basic and important part of system maintenance that you can typically take care of without the need for a service contractor.
During the first two years of a new system, homeowners can generally do their own maintenance. After that, we recommend that a full service maintenance checkup, especially if you haven’t had one done within five years of installation.