9 Easy Steps to Maintain and Clean Your Air Conditioner Yourself

If you want to ensure that your home will have a constant stream of cool air throughout the hot summer months, it’s important that you properly maintain your AC unit. If you haven’t used your AC during the cooler months, or if you simply haven’t cleaned your system in a while, then you are putting yourself at risk for damaging your system. This is because there could be buildup in the system and, as you go to turn on the unit, the buildup could cause your AC to run ineffectively. To ensure that doesn’t happen, here are 9 easy steps to maintain and clean your air conditioner yourself. Get Ready All Of Your Tools One of the most frustrating things that you’ll come across during any DIY project is not having the right tools when you need them most. When this happens, you’ll likely have to run and get them, which could throw off your momentum when cleaning your AC. To avoid this from happening, make sure you have everything ready that you’ll need during your AC cleaning treatment. Disconnect All Electrical Lines It’s vital that you are safe when cleaning your AC unit. If you don’t correctly disconnect all of you electrical lines and tubing, you run the risk of electrocuting yourself or having something happen to your home. If you don’t feel comfortable with disconnecting the wires on your AC unit on your own, contact your trusted AC company for more information and advice. Remove The Top Of The AC Unit To get into your AC unit, you’ll want to remove the top to gain access to the inside where the fan is. In order to remove the top of the AC unit, find where the screws are located and remove them one-by-one. In doing so, make sure you keep track of where you place all of the equipment that you remove, in order to ensure that you don’t lose anything and make it impossible to put your unit back together once your cleaning is completed. Begin Cleaning After the top is off you can begin cleaning the inside of the AC unit. To do so, spray cleanser onto a towel and gently remove any debris or dirt that has accumulated on the sides of the unit, as well as the fan. Depending on the last time that you cleaned your unit, you may notice quite a bit of buildup, so be sure to have a trash bin available to throw everything away as you are cleaning. Avoid Spraying Directly Into Service Panel Area If you want to wash the AC unit out with your hose, this is an option to. However, be sure that you avoid directly spraying into the service panel area. This area should remain dry so that when you hook it back up there are no concerns for an electrical surge shorting out the entire system. In order to avoid spraying into the service panel area, be sure to cover it with a towel or another material that will protect it from getting wet. Change The Air Filter While you are inside of the AC unit it’s also a good time to change the air conditioner filter. Changing the air filter is an easy task and it can do wonders for the quality of air in your home. Air filters should be changed about once a year, so be sure to check this before you start running your unit for the summer. Depending on the amount of dust or pet hair that you have in your home, you may want to consider changing or cleaning the air conditioner filter more frequently when cleaning the unit. Clean The Drain Another tip while maintaining your AC unit is to also clean the drain. The drain doesn't necessarily need to be cleaned as often as the filter, but you might as well do it while you have the top of the unit off and are cleaning the rest of your AC condenser. Reconnect The Lid, Tubing And Wires After you’ve cleaned everything up, all that’s left is to reattach the lid and reconnect the tubing and wires to your unit. Be sure that you take the time to diligently ensure that everything is connected as it was before you started the cleaning project, or else you run the risk of encountering problems that could affect the quality of your unit. Find Help If cleaning and maintaining your AC unit seems like too much of a task for you to do on your own, contact your trusted air conditioning team for help. Not only will this ensure that your maintenance is done properly, but it’ll also help you develop a relationship with an AC company that you can trust in the future.