Common Winter Problems With Air Conditioning

“Can I run my air conditioner in the winter?” you might be asking. The answer is yes, you can indeed – and many people do. The heat pumps on many air conditioners means that once the warm weather kicks in, the unit performs the same role, just in reverse! Here at Askews, our heating and cooling engineers often hear of several common problems with air conditioning units during the winter, and this blog covers a few of the most prominent of these. You’ll be pleased to hear – they’re not always something to worry about!

Be Wary Of False Alarms

One of the tricky things about air conditioning units during the winter is that sometimes, they can all-too-easily give their owners the impression of serious problems when none actually exist. For example, one of the tell-tale warning signs we’ve mentioned on the blog before is that if you see water leaking from your air conditioning unit, this can be an indicator of something going wrong within the system. However, outdoor condensers in winter can often leak through melting ice or frost, or even rain runoff, all of which are completely harmless but can understandably cause unease with their owners.

Similarly, the cold weather can cause condensers to become noisier than usual. This noise in itself isn’t too much to worry about unless you notice any other serious faults in the unit. What can occasionally complicate things is that when an air conditioning unit is in heating mode, it can sometimes stop producing heat from time to time. This is so that it can effectively defrost itself, preventing ice and frost from building up on the condenser coil, and basically keeping the unit in good working order. For this reason, if you think there might be a fault in the unit, it’s always best to wait for a little while to see if it starts back up again once the defrost cycle has finished.

Askews Engineers Are Here To Help

Every so often, you may find that a problem with your unit is definitely not a false alarm. One such issue we at Askews sometimes come across is that of a high pressure trip. This is exactly what it sounds like, whereby the unit shuts itself off due to excessive high pressure building up within the system. When in heating mode, this can easily be caused by dirty filters. It’s just one more reason that underlines the importance of one of our most frequently-repeated sayings here at Askews – regular cleaning and maintenance of your air conditioning systems is absolutely vital to ensuring its continuing smooth operation. (OK, we never said it was a particularly catchy saying.)

This isn’t an exhaustive list of the possible problems you might encounter, of course, but should hopefully put your mind at ease for some of the most common issues. Calling out an engineer is definitely worth it if your air conditioning system has serious issues, but you might be surprised at how many ‘problems’ resolve themselves in a short space of time.

Here at Askews, our engineers are well-versed in all the issues that might affect your system, big or small. You can click here to get a free quote, or give us a call on 01282 863 825.

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