Your air conditioner (A/C) is a vital part of your home’s HVAC system. It is composed of a few main parts, among which are coils. In a typical split system, there are both indoor coils and outdoor coils.
What Coils Do
The indoor coil is called the evaporator coil. It has cooled refrigerant flowing through it so that when air travels over it, heat can be readily extracted before being transported outside. After absorbing heat from the evaporator coil, the refrigerant flows to your outdoor condenser unit. The hot refrigerant releases heat through the outdoor condenser coil, before the refrigerant is circulated back to the indoor coil.
The Effects of Dirty Coils
Since the coils in your A/C facilitate heat transfer, it’s important to keep them clean. Dirt often builds up over time, which will impede heat transfer, thereby lowering your system’s efficiency. An excessive amount of dirt on coils has been shown to increase the system’s operating pressure; the extra stress can lead to expensive breakdowns. Essentially, dirty coils will result in higher energy bills, a lower cooling capacity and slower cooling as well.
Keeping Coils Clean
Maintenance is the most important factor when it comes to the cleanliness of A/C coils. The air filter must be replaced frequently, as dirty filters are ineffective at removing dirt and micro-organisms that can accumulate on your coils.
Aside from prevention, cleaning your coils is also an important part of home maintenance. You can clean your outdoor coils by spraying them with a hose. This should be done regularly during the cooling season, but be careful to choose an appropriate level of water pressure. It is also a good idea to have a professional HVAC technician do the thorough cleaning. Cleaning the inside evaporator coil is very involved as it will often require removing the coil from the system and reinstalling it after it has been chemically cleaned.
If you have any questions about cleaning the A/C coils in your Amarillo home, contact the HVAC experts at Amarillo Air Conditioning, Inc.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in Amarillo, Texas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). For more information about clean A/C coils and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.
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