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2 Troubleshooting Tasks You Can Do On Your Broken AC Unit

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With summer coming up, you want to make sure that you can stay cool and comfortable in your house. That can be hard to do when your air conditioner stops working. If your AC does stop working, you need to call an HVAC contractor to fix the problem. However, they may not be able to get to your house as soon as you like, giving you time to do a little troubleshooting on your own. Troubleshooting can help the HVAC tech when they get to your house because you can tell them what you did.  

Check Your Thermostat

One of the first things you should do is check your thermostat. Make sure that the selector is turned to AC. It may be possible that the selector got moved by accident. After checking that, you should turn your thermostat down as low as possible. The reason for that is that it should trigger the air conditioner to come on. If it turns on, then the problem may be with your thermostat, and it may need to be recalibrated. If it doesn't turn on, then you have a little more information about what the problem may be. 

Check Your Circuit Breaker

Your AC unit needs to have power to work. That means that it will be connected to your circuit breaker. Go to the breaker box and see if any breakers are off. If the breaker that the AC is connected to is off, then switch it back on to see if it will make your unit turn on. Try turning the breaker off and back on. Sometimes, the switch doesn't move fully into the off position when the breaker trips, so it looks like it is on. Flipping it off and on again will reset the circuit and switch entirely to the on position. Turning the circuit off and back on may also reset the AC unit and cause it to work again. This doesn't always happen, but it is worth trying. If the circuit breaker turns off again as soon as you turn it on, leave it off because there is a problem in the system, and you don't want to have an overload. 

If your AC doesn't turn on, you can get steamy under the collar. You should call an HVAC tech to fix the unit. You can also troubleshoot on your own to see if you can get the AC working again. 

Contact a local air conditioning repair service to learn more. 


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