Possible Reasons Why Your Air Conditioner Runs Constantly

By in , , , ,
Possible Reasons Why Your Air Conditioner Runs Constantly

Does it seem like your air conditioner is running constantly? Generally speaking, that’s not a good thing. Typically, your A/C should run for about 15 minutes during a typical cooling cycle. If it’s running 30 minutes or even an hour for the long run, it’s not normal.

Why it’s a problem

Kotz Heating, Cooling & Plumbing wants you to know, when the air conditioner is running for a long time it’s wasting energy. We all know what the result is, higher utility bills. Long runs also put undue stress on the components leading to breakdowns and premature A/C replacements.

6 Possible reasons

  1. A/C unit is improperly sized—If the air conditioner is too small for your house, no amount of A/C maintenance or repair is going to help. In all likelihood, the best choice is to install a new, larger unit in your Waterford, MI home. 
  2. The air conditioner is getting old—You’ve heard the saying many times when it comes to athletes, “Father Time is undefeated.” The same thing is true for your air conditioner. Components wear out and the unit is less efficient. This leads to a real catch 22 because now the A/C runs longer, and the aging process speeds up.
  3. A leaky home and ducts—Sometimes the problem of long runs isn’t in the air conditioner, but rather hot air coming into the house because of leaky doors and windows. Or conditioned air escaping from leaky ductwork before it even gets to the living areas of your house.
  4. Dirty cooling coils—If you haven’t practiced good HVAC maintenance and your cooling coils are dirty, the A/C must work much harder to remove hot air from the home. It’s why regular A/C maintenance by the experts from Kotz is so important.
  5. Unrealistic thermostat setting—If the outside temperature is 95℉ and the thermostat is set to 65℉, your air conditioner is going to run for a long time. A thermostat setting of 75 to 78℉ is much more realistic.
  6. Man, it’s hot today—If you only notice the long runs by your A/C when it’s extremely hot outside, then you may not have a problem. If the operation seems to return to normal when the weather cools, you’re probably okay.

Kotz is here to help

If your A/C seems to be running all the time our experts can find out why. We’ll sit down with you and show you the options. If it’s an A/C replacement because of age or an improperly sized unit, we will tell you why we believe that’s the correct choice. When Kotz does any HVAC replacement you receive our 100% happiness guarantee, but the final decision is always yours to make. For more great information like this be sure to like and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.