Air Conditioning Repairs
New England’s summers are as hot as its winters are cold. At Sinclaire Home Services, we understand the importance of keeping your house nice and cool during the hottest months of the year. While the best way to prevent air conditioning malfunctions is to keep your system well maintained through annual tune-ups, we understand that, as with anything mechanical, sometimes things just break. That’s why you have Sinclaire Home Services- our job is to get your A/C up and running as soon as possible after a breakdown.
When it comes to fixing your A/C system, our repair technicians are constantly being trained in the most effective techniques to help diagnose and repair your air conditioning system in a timely and effective manner. All of our technicians are trained in Quality Installation Verification (QIV) through the MA Coolsmart program. This program allows us to check the proper charge and airflow of the A/C system and confirm that it is running at its peak efficiency.
The three most common types of air conditioning service calls are no cooling, insufficient cooling and water leaking from the air conditioner.
No Cooling – The first thing to check if there is no cooling coming from your air conditioner is that the thermostat is set to “Cooling” and the fan is set to “Auto.” If you have a digital thermostat, you will also want to check the batteries and make sure they are still good. If these measures are in check, the reason for your lack of cooling could be due to a clogged air filter. If you are routinely maintaining your A/C system, and have recently replaced the air filter, this is likely not the issue. However, if it is clogged, this could not only be causing the lack of cooling, it could be seriously damaging your A/C system. Shut down the system until the air filter has been replaced in order to prevent further damage.
Insufficient Cooling – This is when your A/C system is cooling, just inefficiently. As with the above scenario of no cooling at all, make sure your thermostat is properly set to “Cooling” and “Auto” and that the batteries are new if it is a digital thermostat. Clogged filters will also cause insufficient cooling by restricting the air flow and making it more difficult to filter the air. Another cause of insufficient cooling is low refrigerant in the system itself (R22 or R410a). We can determine this by testing the pressures in your system and adding refrigerant as needed. This is also done during our maintenance checkups. Sometimes repetitive low refrigerant may be an indicator that there is a leak in your system. If this is the case, Sinclaire Enterprises can perform a leak test to determine the location and severity of the leak and advise accordingly.
Water Leaking – Two things can cause your A/C system to leak water. The first is called a condensate leak or a condensation leak. When the air conditioner is running, it takes heat and humidity out of the air. The result of this process is condensation, a lot of it. All A/C systems have ways of dealing with this. Some have condensate pumps which pump the condensation away to a desired location. If the pump fails, however, the water has nowhere to go and eventually spills out into the basement or attic. In other systems, the condensation gets deposited into a drain pan and then drained by gravity through tubes, usually to the outside. If the pan or condensate tube gets clogged, the condensation will overflow. This can cause damage to floors if in a basement or ceilings if in an attic. If your system is leaking water, shut it down right away so it will stop producing condensation and give us a call. The second type of water leak that can occur is from melting ice. If your A/C system is low on refrigerant or running with a clogged air filter, this may cause the coil to ice up, literally become covered with ice, and stop working. When the system fails, the ice begins to melt dripping water all over your basement or attic. Again, shut down your system to prevent further damage and call us.
While these examples are the most common types of service calls, there are many others that can come about. Routine annual maintenance can prevent a lot of A/C maintenance calls, but not all. The simple fact is, mechanical things break. We’re here to fix them.
