Business is definitely booming for local ac repairmen, but they say when they make some of the house calls, they find many cases where there's nothing wrong with the AC units.
Experts say the weather is so hot, it's impossible for homeowners to get their inside temperature below 75 degrees during the peak of the day no matter how hard their AC is working.
Randy Vanderford's office phone has been ringing around the clock. The president of his own AC repair company says surprisingly a number of calls his men go to aren't even broken units.
"We have guys who go out to home and their systems are cooling 74 to 75 degrees and the system just can't do better than that in this 100 degree weather," said Vanderford, President of Vanderford Mechanical in Dickenson.
Experts say a major complaint is the AC is not cooling enough. What many homeowners don't realize is no matter how low you adjust your AC to, it can only cool your home about twenty degrees lower than the outside temperature. That means if it's 100 degrees outside, your home can cool to around 80 degrees.
"If the system is working properly, you should be achieving between 18 to 20 degrees split between your return temperature and the temperature coming out of your vents," said Vanderford.
Local homeowner, John Collins, is able to keep his home around 75 degrees but that's because he has two AC units cooling his home.
"I have two AC units so it's able to pull the house down to a very comfortable level, but the house gets hot in different areas," said Collins.
Vanderford say about 25% of his customers actually have a dead unit; about 70% have minor problems, and 5% actually have nothing wrong at all.
"We've been finding a lot of problems with systems low on refrigerants having leaks checked and having the problem solved," said Vanderford.
Experts say good maintenance twice a year will keep your ac unit from breaking downÂ… for example, have your repairman clean the coils, clear the drain lines, and tighten all connections.
You'll be surprise at how big a difference doing so will make.
Also, experts say try not to set your thermostat below 70 degrees.
Experts say the weather is so hot, it's impossible for homeowners to get their inside temperature below 75 degrees during the peak of the day no matter how hard their AC is working.
Randy Vanderford's office phone has been ringing around the clock. The president of his own AC repair company says surprisingly a number of calls his men go to aren't even broken units.
"We have guys who go out to home and their systems are cooling 74 to 75 degrees and the system just can't do better than that in this 100 degree weather," said Vanderford, President of Vanderford Mechanical in Dickenson.
Experts say a major complaint is the AC is not cooling enough. What many homeowners don't realize is no matter how low you adjust your AC to, it can only cool your home about twenty degrees lower than the outside temperature. That means if it's 100 degrees outside, your home can cool to around 80 degrees.
"If the system is working properly, you should be achieving between 18 to 20 degrees split between your return temperature and the temperature coming out of your vents," said Vanderford.
Local homeowner, John Collins, is able to keep his home around 75 degrees but that's because he has two AC units cooling his home.
"I have two AC units so it's able to pull the house down to a very comfortable level, but the house gets hot in different areas," said Collins.
Vanderford say about 25% of his customers actually have a dead unit; about 70% have minor problems, and 5% actually have nothing wrong at all.
"We've been finding a lot of problems with systems low on refrigerants having leaks checked and having the problem solved," said Vanderford.
Experts say good maintenance twice a year will keep your ac unit from breaking downÂ… for example, have your repairman clean the coils, clear the drain lines, and tighten all connections.
You'll be surprise at how big a difference doing so will make.
Also, experts say try not to set your thermostat below 70 degrees.
