How Does Preventative Maintenance Prevent Expensive HVAC Repairs?


You probably already know that routine maintenance is essential to keeping your home's HVAC system operating efficiently. HVAC systems tend to become more inefficient due to parts wearing out and other routine and relatively mundane problems as they age. However, proper maintenance can help stave off these issues, keeping the system running as close as possible to its original specifications.

However, saving money on utility bills isn't the only reason to stay on top of routine maintenance. Preventative maintenance prevents problems before they occur, allowing you to avoid expensive emergency service visits. This particular aspect of routine servicing can be even better for your budget than increased efficiency.

Why Is It Better to Catch Problems Early?

In general, there are two major reasons why waiting for a catastrophic heating or cooling failure will often cost far more money than addressing the problem as early as possible:

  • Expensive emergency service calls
  • Ongoing damage

Heating and cooling systems contain many components which can suffer greater wear when left unmaintained. For example, a refrigerant leak in an air conditioning system may initially produce few symptoms, but it will eventually lead to a frozen evaporator coil and a stressed compressor. In severe cases, a refrigerant leak can even cause damage to the compressor due to slugging.

Problems like these are relatively inexpensive when caught early but much more expensive to repair if left unaddressed. In a worst-case scenario, they may even cause enough damage to force an entire system replacement, especially with older HVAC units. The cost of an emergency service visit when your HVAC system fails on a hot summer day or cold winter night is also usually non-trivial.

How Does Preventative Maintenance Stop These Issues?

Preventative maintenance is often the best way to avoid the most costly issues associated with HVAC failures. Any routine maintenance visit will include a long checklist of tasks to clean, service, and inspect your HVAC system. These jobs help ensure your heating and cooling equipment are operating as efficiently as possible, minimizing the amount of wear and tear as the system ages.

However, having an HVAC professional inspect your system is just as important as the other aspects of an annual maintenance visit. This inspection will include checking everything from analyzing the efficiency of your furnace's combustion to confirming that your air conditioner produces the proper temperature drop between the return and supply vents.

Conducting a thorough inspection of your system requires a trained eye, but it can be an excellent way to spot the earliest signs of trouble. Locating potential problems during a routine maintenance inspection allows you to fix them before they cause more damage to your system or force you to make an expensive emergency repair call. 

For more information about preventative HVAC maintenance, contact a local company. 

About Me

Cooling Your Child’s Playhouse

When I was a kid, I enjoyed going to my maternal grandparents’ home. Whenever I visited them, they always spoiled me by giving me sweet treats and toys. To store my many dolls, games, and sports equipment, my grandparents built a small playhouse in their backyard. I spent many amazing hours playing in this small building. Because I grew up in the southern United States where the weather gets extremely hot during the summer months, my grandparents also installed a wall air conditioner unit in my playhouse. So I would never have to worry about getting too hot while playing with my toys. I'd like to do the same with my grandchildren and am researching the best types of air conditioners to install in a playhouse.