5 Surprising Things Your Air Conditioner Might Tell You If You Listen
Date - 02/06/2023
Sometimes, we ignore those who matter most to us. We’re busy. They’re busy. Work interferes with play time. Life intervenes with unexpected demands and puts a crimp in our schedule. Too many chores and too little time to really converse and we don’t get to listen to each other like we’d like to.
So it’s understandable that if it’s hard to find time to talk to your family, it’s doubly hard to listen to your air conditioner.
But you should.
Here are five surprising things your air conditioner might tell you if you listen.
ONE: “My sole purpose in life…”
Hi, let me introduce myself. My name is Homer. My sole purpose in life is to keep you comfortable. I’ll do whatever you tell me to. Crank up the cool. Turn up the heat. I can obey your comfort commands and adjust your home’s temperature at any time by responding to those handy apps that control my thermostat.
And guess what? I’m the friendliest kind of household appliance. All I really want is to serve you and develop a long-term relationship that makes us both happy well into my old age.
All we need to do is communicate a bit. If we can chat occasionally, I’ll tell you everything you need to know about how to keep us operating smoothly year after year with the least expense and with the champion performance I’m capable of delivering.
TWO: “We NEED to join the Comfort Club membership”
Hey, I know you and appreciate all the many, many great qualities you bring to the world. You’re smart. You work hard. You take care of your family. But are you an air conditioning tech?
This is why one of the most important things I want to tell you is that – for both of our sakes – we need to join the Air Therm Comfort Club.
You’re busy and have a billion things to do, some of them even more important than listening to old Homer, here, so I’d be more than happy to talk to your representatives. They’re great listeners, excellent diagnosticians, and skilled air conditioner doctors.
I’ve seen a lot of “deals,” but I’ve never seen a better one when it comes to keeping me running in tip-top shape.
Just $99 per year, and Air Therm’s very capable, knowledgeable techs will come check on me twice a year, listening to my input and giving me the best possible care. I’ve even heard that Air Therm will take care of all the heating and air conditioning units in this whole house, all for a flat rate of $99 a year.
(It’s such a good deal that I can hardly believe it’s true, but many of my friends have sworn it’s true, all of them raving and applauding their Air Therm visits.)
THREE: “Help! I can’t breathe!”
My maker told me never to complain and to work as long as I can, as hard as I possibly can, no matter what.
But I have to tell you that it’s hard to do when I can’t breathe!
I’m all stuffed up and wheezing because I can’t pull air in through that filthy filter. Every little gasp of air I can draw in is filled with dust, dander, and microbes, and then I have to puff some of that back out to you. (I HATE it when that happens!)
Really. Is it too much to ask to get you to change my filter once in a while? Every month would be ideal, but it would be a welcome relief if you could do it even every two or three months. I know that it’s easy to forget, but I can’t keep you healthy if I’m all filled with germs!
Since my sole purpose in life is to keep you comfortable and do the best possible job for you, I need to explain that changing my filter will save you money.
That’s right.
Cold, hard cash.
If you change my filter even once every three months, the Department of Energy says that you will save $150 bucks a year and reduce your air conditioner’s energy consumption by 15%.
I can keep you cooler, warmer, healthier, and wealthier if you just change my filter.
You hear what I’m saying?
FOUR: Any noise I make is a cry for help.
I am really sorry when I rattle, clank, whir and whine like a rusty chainsaw. It’s only because something is going wrong.
You know how you feel when your arthritis is acting up, or you’ve pulled a muscle, or a joint is out of whack?
When a bolt is loose or a wire is rubbing somewhere inside of me, I can’t hear myself think. If I can’t hear myself think, then I KNOW that I’m creating a distraction to your nice, quiet day. I am SO SORRY! Generally, I’m the strong silent type, so this ruckus is driving me crazy and making me feel bad about my ability to serve you.
Can you please get me a check-up?
FIVE: I’m FREEZING! Literally.
Let me tell you. Keeping you cool is hot, sweaty work for me, but sometimes I go into overdrive, and actually freeze myself up.
It may seem crazy that I’m telling you I’m freezing on a blistering hot day, but it happens.
My job requires that I pull heat out of the air and send it to my condenser where the heat goes into coils filled with refrigerant. Those coils cool the heat and send it as moisture to the outside.
But if I don’t have enough warm air circulating around those super cold, refrigerated coils, then they can freeze up.
If I’m telling you I’m freezing, literally, I’m not kidding. If you listen to me and go check, you’ll find ice on my condenser fins, something that happens when my drainage is blocked, my fan or thermostat is going bad, or my refrigerant is not at the right level. (Think of my refrigerant as sort of like your blood sugar. If it gets out of balance, your whole system suffers.)
Being “cool” is a good thing. Being frozen is not.
Help me. Please.
Before you rush off…
Thanks for taking time to chat. It means a lot to me that you listen, and when you take the time, I promise that I’ll never blow hot air just for the sake of conversation.
I love our little talks. Really, I do, and spending time with you made my day.
Now I’m going back to pursue my passion: keeping you cool and comfortable every day of my life.