Frozen coils, dirty filters, a blower motor that quit, and the attic problems that make a working air conditioner look broken in August.
In Texas an air conditioner is not a comfort appliance. When it stops keeping up in August you want an answer that night, and the show has spent several episodes with working HVAC people getting one.
Jehu and Jojo Trumbly of Affordable Air Repair took the summer failures apart on the air conditioning episode. A unit ices up from a lack of airflow, from a filter nobody has changed, or from a blower motor that is not moving air, and an outdoor coil packed with grass clippings makes the whole system work harder for the same result. They came back for the fall heating episode with the other half of the machine: that first burnt smell out of the furnace, mini splits, zoning, SEER ratings, inverter compressors and the filter you keep meaning to change.
Not every symptom is the machine. On the plumbing episode with the Fisher family, the AC condensate line is a common source of water turning up where nobody expected it, in the same attic as the water heater. Caroline Blazovsky makes the case that humidity, house pressurization and ventilation decide how air feels as much as temperature does.
And the swamp cooler episode is worth hearing before you buy one, because an evaporative cooler is a genuinely different machine from an air conditioner.
Our Sponsor DroneQuote - if you need a new roof or solar, let DroneQuote take the hassle out of the process and get the quotes you need for your home. It’s simple, efficient, and reliable. click the link above to get your free quote now!
In this episode, Craig and Kevin interview Jehu and Jojo Trumbly, owners of Affordable Air Repair. If they sound familiar, it’s because we interviewed them the first time on episode 58 about air conditioning.
In this episode, Craig and Kevin talk with Caroline Blazovsky, America’s Healthy Home Expert. Covid has made all of us hyper-aware of the air that we breathe and the germs that we live with on a daily basis.
In this episode Craig and Kevin review the Hessaire MC18V Portable Evaporative Cooler, which cools 500 Square Feet. If you’ve ever wondered what a swamp cooler is, or what makes it different than a traditional air conditioner, this episode will clear that up for you.
Airflow, almost always. On the air conditioning episode, Affordable Air Repair listed the usual causes: a dirty or clogged filter, restricted airflow through the system, and a blower motor that is not spinning the way it should. They also make the case for keeping the outdoor coil clean, because grass clippings and yard debris get pulled straight into it.
More often than you think, and it depends on the house. Affordable Air Repair pointed out that pets and household dust change the interval, and that a neglected filter is one of the fastest ways to freeze a system or make it run harder than it needs to.
Humidity. Caroline Blazovsky covered humidity control, house pressurization and HRV and ERV ventilation, and the point is that air at the same temperature feels different depending on what is in it. The fall heating episode covers whole home dehumidifiers as a separate device from the air conditioner.
Often the condensate line. The Fisher family covered the AC condensate line on their plumbing episode, along with the water heater sharing that attic, which is why an air conditioning problem sometimes arrives looking like a plumbing one.
There is a lot more where that came from.
The archive runs to hundreds of episodes on roofs, HVAC, pests, hiring, insurance and everything else a house throws at you. New ones every week.