Your air conditioner has three pieces that are crucial to operation. When they break down, the whole thing stops working. Those parts are the condenser, evaporator, and of course, your air compressor.
When your compressor runs into issues, you’ll know it–or at least that something’s wrong. It always results in air conditioning repair in Sarasota, FL, but there’s no telling if the compressor needs to be replaced or not. Let’s talk about that.
Air Compressors Can Sometimes Be Repaired
An air compressor goes through a lot of stress in its lifetime. Your air conditioning system relies on it to act as a bridge between the compressor and the condenser, so there’s a lot riding on it. The source of the problem with your compressor isn’t always clear, but it’s most often:
- An air leak. Air leaks happen as tubing ages. However, it doesn’t take a lot of air pressure drop from within the tube to render it useless. Replacing a tube to fix an air leak is the best-case scenario, and oftentimes, it’s done as a DIY project. Finding out which specific tube you need for your AC model? That’s another challenge.
- Damage to the O-ring. O-rings are rubber seals that degrade over time. There’s not much to these; they’re just not meant to be the most durable components in, well, anything they’re added into. Replacing these is thankfully not as pricey as replacing an entire air compressor.
- Low refrigerant levels (leak). You never need to “top off” your refrigerant–it means the line is leaking, and that’s a big problem. If your air compressor isn’t working, it could be the refrigerant line and the compressor might be okay regardless.
How Do You Know if it’s the Air Compressor in the First Place?
There are a few ways to tell if it’s even your air compressor that’s the problem. Sometimes these symptoms/signs can also be conflated as problems with other components, but these are the most reliable ways to know if it’s your air compressor or not.
- Your circuit breaker trips often. Your compressor could be pulling too much power to compensate for not reaching proper air flow.
- You hear odd noises. Weird sounds from your AC are never a good thing. If it sticks out, it’s abnormal and means something’s wrong.
- Your vents have warm air coming out. Put your hand up to the vent. If warm air is coming out (and with less force than usual) your compressor could be on the fritz.
Keep the Air Flowing
Your air compressor might be able to be fixed, but keep in mind older air compressors may have more problems than one. Be prepared for possible replacement instead of just repairing it. While it can be done as a DIY project, it’s never recommended to do so.
You should always have a licensed HVAC technician handling these repairs for you. They’ll need to inspect the entire air conditioner to see where the air compressor’s failure impacted other components, and that inspection is worth its weight in gold. Schedule your repair appointment now so we can get out to you as soon as possible.
Contact us today to schedule your air conditioner repair as soon as possible and get that compressor back up and running.