Should I have my air conditioner serviced this spring?

    Well, it’s spring time, which means calls from your air conditioning servicing company trying to get you to sign up for another annual service contract. With costs for “annual service contracts” ranging from $150/year to over $400/year, it’s very hard for the average homeowner to really know if it’s worth it or not.  We are often asked “do I really need the annual air-conditioner (AC) tune-up?” For years my answer was “yes” without much thought. However, several experts in home performance have begun to challenge this long held assumption. The answer is now “maybe” and it depends more on the home owner than the air conditioner. There simply is no right or wrong answer, but an answer that is best for you and your situation. The age, type (air conditioner or heat  pump), service history, location, and condition of the unit all play a role in determining if you are better of signing up for a HVAC service contract. That said here are a few points you should consider before deciding on getting your AC or heat pump serviced:

1. Do not service the AC yourself.  Period! No, it’s not rocket science, but there are high voltages and high currents involved. Let a professional do it.
   
2. By far the best thing you can do for your air conditioner, furnace, and indoor air quality is to check the air filter monthly, and clean it or replace it as needed, usually quarterly or twice a year. Clogged, dirty filters block normal airflow and reduce a system’s efficiency significantly. With normal airflow obstructed, air that bypasses the filter may carry dirt directly into the evaporator coil and impair the coil’s heat-absorbing capacity. Replacing a dirty, clogged filter with a clean one can lower your air conditioner’s energy consumption by 5% to 15%.
3. If you are the type of person who doesn’t want to do anything, or can’t remember the last time you changed your air filter, than an annual service contract is a good investment for you.
4. Likewise, if your air conditioning unit is over 10 years old, I would recommend annual service. In Nebraska, the average air conditioner lasts 15-20 years, while heat pumps last on average 12-15 years. Most of the major components of an air conditioner have a 10 year or greater manufacturer warranty.
5. Although you will often hear see in advertising that serving your air conditioner will save you money by increasing the efficiency of the unit, this savings is often overestimated. Unless there is something wrong with your system (low levels of refrigerant, low air flow across the coils, etc.) the service will minimally increase your system’s efficiency. However, the AC will last longer.
6. Appreciate that the service technicians doing the service maintenance jobs are usually the most inexperienced technicians at the company. This does not at all mean that they will do an inferior job. But as with most professions, experience greatly benefits you if a problem arises.
   
7. There is a fair amount of consensus in the HVAC industry that a complete service trip or tune-up should last about 60-75 minutes on-site per unit. If much less, than they are probably taking short cuts. If much more, than either the service technician found something wrong (and should tell you about it), or they are having troubles putting something back together (see #6), or they are wasting time and charging you too much.
8. Michael Blasnik, a building-science consultant who has studied this issue for years, recommends a complete tune up every 3 years.Why every 3 years? According to Blasnik, and our experience confirms it, most “generic maintenance plans” simply aren’t thorough enough to get the system running at design or installed conditions. The problem with “generic” tune-ups, Blasnik notes, is that “most HVAC technicians don’t know how to measure air flow or refrigerant charge.” That’s why researchers have found more problems in regularly serviced units. Your annual service “tune-up” should be somewhat customized to your particular unit. Blasnik quotes several studies, including one from Oak Ridge National Laboratory: “The approach of tuning up all units as a standard practice … is costly, probably unnecessary, and likely does not produce energy savings in many units.”
   
   

So what is a home owner to do?

A) Contract your HVAC servicing company and ask for a quote for an ACCA Standard 4 tune-up? The Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA) has an industry standard (ACCA Standard 4) that prescribes the minimum maintenance inspection tasks for an annual service. If they don’t know what this is, they (and you) can download a copy from the link below. Unfortunately, even though this is industry standard for minimum maintenance tasks, most annual service contracts that I’ve seen are not this thorough. Why? Many HVAC service contractors will follow the manufacturer’s recommended checklists instead of ACCA Standard 4, or they have found that the Omaha market will simply not support the more detailed (and thus more expensive) ACCA Standard 4 tune-up.

B) Get 2-3 quotes, and then chose an HVAC contractor based on who you trust, not based on cost. More often than not, you get what you paid for.

C) When the HVAC technician arrives for the service call, make sure he/she completes our detailed ACCA Standard 4 checklist (also available from the link below) and leaves it with you. That way, you know you got a thorough tune-up.

D) Keep this checklist as your record of the service call. This will come in handy if the unit breaks down later in the summer.

Copy  of ACCA Standard 4 quality-maintenance

Copy of AC tune-up checklist