As your prospective (or reoccurring) HVAC contractor in Arlington, VA, you’ve probably heard us mention routine maintenance quite a few times. It’s an excellent service that’s well worth the money it costs. Over time, maintenance can halt repairs before they become bad, keep efficiency levels high, and do a lot more for your home comfort. As far as yearly services go, this is one of the best you could hope for.
Unfortunately, the majority of HVAC system owners don’t schedule maintenance yearly. In fact, many people think they don’t need HVAC maintenance at all, and that they’ll be fine without it. This is what we’re going to address in this blog post.
Skipping AC maintenance won’t spell out the end of the world–but it will be pretty devastating to the condition of your system. We’ll see what happens when you skip maintenance over 1, 3, 5, and 10 years.
Skipping One Year of Maintenance
Look, if the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that you should really never expect life to go the way you want it. Lots of things can pop up and interfere with our lives, from schedule disruptions to huge, life-changing events that can push your HVAC worries to the back of your mind.
We get it. We’re not here to shame anyone. It’s common to miss a year of maintenance due to life events. In all honesty, you’ll only notice a slight decrease in performance or efficiency, but nothing catastrophic to your budget or system. Just make sure that when this happens, you do your best to schedule service for the next year so you avoid some of the other problems down the line.
Skipping 3 Years of Maintenance
3 Years of maintenance can host a heavy toll on your air conditioner. For starters, every year of maintenance missed adds about a 5% increase in energy consumption for the system, since it runs less efficiently. Also, you might notice that the thermostat isn’t giving you the best temperature control since your home feels a bit warmer. Do your best to get things repaired and get your system’s maintenance back on track to get the most out of it for the rest of its lifespan.
Skipping 5 Years of Maintenance
Five years of maintenance being skipped is a precipice. At this point, you’re probably running your air conditioner to early retirement, but it’s also not too late to get it evaluated and see how it’s looking. At least maintenance from this point on will help it last long enough for you to evaluate your options down the line.
Skipping 10 Years of Maintenance
If your air conditioner makes it to 10 years of service without maintenance, then you might want to consider that a miracle! Air conditioners can run into a lot of problems during their lifespans if they’re unmaintained, and those issues can reduce the service life of the unit, depending on how bad they are. When your air conditioner needs to be replaced (which is likely soon in this case), make sure you start off strong with maintenance this time, so your AC can last 15 years instead of 10!
Contact Polar Bear Air Conditioning & Heating Inc. to invest in powerful AC maintenance services.