A special spring maintenance service tailored for the Carlyle House
Celebrating 15 years of service to our friends at The Carlyle House. Thank you!
A look at the coils
A very Dirty outdoor Coil
A very Dirty outdoor Coil
A very Dirty outdoor Coil
Here we see an outdoor coil completely covered over with dust, pollen and dirt.
A clean outdoor coil
A very Dirty outdoor Coil
A very Dirty outdoor Coil
Underneath the coating of dust and debris we see the fins.
A dirty indoor coil
A very Dirty outdoor Coil
A dirty indoor coil
The indoor coil is wet in the cooling mode so dust, pet dander, smoke, lint and you name it, the water helps it stick. Then you get mold, slimy bacteria films, this then stuff starts to flow into the drain that is what causes clogs.
Technical stuff about coils
The outdoor coil
The machine draws air in through the outdoor coil, between the fins, across the outdoor fan motor and then blows it out through the top louver.
The air cools the refrigerant gases flowing inside the coil.
When the coil gets dirty this is what happens.
1. The refrigerant pressure increases so the compressor has to work harder. This has a direct affect on energy consumption and can even be measured with a meter. The compressor also runs hotter than it should and can eventually fail.
2. A dirty coil reduces the capacity, rated in tons, of the system. So the machine has to run longer to cool your home. This also directly impacts your energy usage. We've responded to "not cooling enough" calls and found the only problem is a dirty outdoor coil.
3. The outdoor fan motor is cooled by the air flowing across it. When the air flow is reduced and also hotter due to a dirty coil it causes the bearing grease to liquify and leak out. eventually leading to failure of the motor.
4. When the refrigerant pressure is elevated, we have seen the access ports begin to leak, causing a loss of refrigerant which impacts energy and also can lead to compressor failure.
About newer machines, those installed in the last few years. The government standards have changed over the years requiring manufacturer's to meet higher and higher efficiency standards. Because these machines are sized constrained by the existing wall openings, they have runout of room to make the outdoor coils physically bigger. So they had add more fins by putting them closer together. Thus increasing the cumulative surface area. These tighter spaces between the fins clog up much faster than the old wide spaced fins which allowed a lot of stuff to just pass through.