While your air conditioner is made to withstand the weather, including heavy showers and wind damage, occasionally you need to call your AC repair technician to inspect possible damage. If your air conditioner sits in standing water, due to flooding or other unexpected issues, it can cause serious damage to the moving parts and electrical pieces. The water usually has to reach about 12-15 inches in depth to affect your AC system, but if there has been any flooding whatsoever, call Finch Air Conditioning & Heating for a safety inspection right away.
If severe storms or flooding caused your AC system to sit in standing water, there are a handful of things we advise doing to avoid further damage or a dangerous environment:
- Turn off all the electrical controls for your air conditioner. If you are not comfortable with this, you can call your air conditioning repair expert to help guide you through the process.
- Allow your AC system to dry out. Get rid of any standing water if possible and safely clear any debris from the surrounding area.
- Don’t turn your air conditioner back on until a professional air conditioning inspection has been completed. Call Finch Air Conditioning & Heating and ensure your equipment will run safely and effectively with a full AC safety inspection.
CAUTION: Do not cover your outdoor heating and cooling systems with a tarp. This could actually cause more problems, including not allowing the air conditioner to air out completely and remove moisture, potentially causing rust or other damage.
In addition to rain, spring escorts in hail storms, also. Annually thousands of commercial and residential air conditioners are damaged by hail. While you can probably see obvious damage from the outside, you may not notice that the damage inside the air conditioner may be causing restricted air flow, hindering the performance of the system. Sometimes you can fix the AC unit more easily, by combing the fins or replacing the coil, but an insurance company’s claim breakdown showed that around a tenth of AC systems damaged by hail had to be completely replaced.
High winds tend to accompany storms and while your air conditioning unit probably won’t get wind damage, other objects picked up by the wind, like bushes, grills, or sandboxes, can be thrown, damaging your system.
For a full air conditioning inspection and safety check, call Finch Air Conditioning & Heating today and we’ll make sure your AC system is running safely and efficiently. Help keep your family safe during storm season and make sure to follow these guidelines if your city is under a serious storm warning.