Twice a year. You should have a cooling tune-up done in the spring and a heating tune-up done in the fall. Air conditioning units are like any other piece of machinery; you must have them properly maintained to maximize their performance, efficiency, and life-span.

There is no exact answer for how long your system should run during each cycle. The average air conditioner is sized to remove the heat from your home as fast as it comes in, on a 110° day. Therefore, ideally, on a 110° day the system should be able to keep up with the incoming heat, but not gain on it and be able to turn off. The cooler it is below 110°, the more the system will cycle on and off.

Obviously the time of year becomes a big factor for desired temperature settings. In the summer months the average temperature setting is 78°-80°, in the winter 70°-72° seems to be the most common setting. Remember, when leaving your house; try to avoid drastic temperature changes. Do not set your temperature back more than 5°; this will cause your unit to work harder to achieve the desired temperature setting.

Your home is not properly insulated. You may have very poor windows, minimal wall and roof insulation, etc. All these things prevent your home from blocking out the heat and cold from outside. A house that is not well insulated will always be more difficult to heat in the winter and cool in the summer. Your system is not properly maintained. Poorly maintained units do not run efficiently and will cost you more to operate. Your filter is dirty and is not changed often enough. A dirty filter restricts airflow and causes your unit to run harder and therefore use more energy.

You should never close more than one register in your home if the air conditioning system was installed by Temperature Control If your duct system was not installed by Temperature Control, you should not close any registers. CLOSING OFF REGISTERS DOES NOT SAVE ENERGY! If you close off air to rooms, they will still have heat gain from the outside. This heat gain is transferred to the rest of the house through doors, walls, ceilings, etc. This heat gain will cause your unit to work just as hard as if all the registers were open. There is no energy savings to be gained from closing off registers.

SEER stands for Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio. It is an energy efficiency rating for air conditioning units. The higher the SEER rating, the more efficient a unit is.

For example, older units used to have a SEER rating of 6-10. New units today must have a minimum SEER rating of 14. The most efficient systems available today are about 25 SEER.

We all love the feeling of that cool air after a monsoon storm, but this is the absolute worst time to open up your doors and windows. Doing so will introduce extremely high levels of humidity into the home. This humidity gets absorbed into carpets, draperies, bedding, clothes, etc. When you fire-up your air conditioning later it is going to work extra hard for the next 24-48 hours to remove all the added humidity in the house. Yes, it takes that long to return your homes humidity back to normal. This extra work will greatly increase your energy bills. So, if you want to enjoy that cool monsoon air, go outside and have dinner on the patio. Do not completely open up your house.

At least yearly with proper filter maintenance. If you do not change your filter at regular intervals your indoor coil could become clogged, which could then cause your condensate drain to clog and flood your mechanical room. Temperature Control, performs this cleaning during our spring tune-up.