Nobody wants to replace their air conditioner before they absolutely must.
Power outages, even for a few seconds can sometimes destroy your air conditioner or severely damage it. By installing a surge protector, upgraded contactor, and a hard start kit, your air conditioner will be protected from lightning strikes and power outages that wreck havoc on your most expensive appliance: your air conditioner.
We can get some wicked storms in the Midwest.
In 2011 our office building was struck by lightning and caught fire. We experienced a total loss of our office and had to rebuild. While nothing could have stopped the fire from happening, we did become aware of how often lightning and simple power outages can severely damage your furnace and air conditioner. After our experience and realizing that many of our customers would have problems with their air conditioners after power outages, we put together a simple package of products that will protect your hvac system in case of lightning strikes or power outages.
There are three things we recommend to protect your air conditioner:
1. Surge Protector
Be honest. Do you have a surge protector to protect your $300 television, but not to protect your $10,000 air conditioner? We see it all the time. Here’s what happens: it is the middle of summer with about 1000% humidity so your air conditioner is working overtime. Your lights go off for a brief moment then come back on. All clear? No. If the power outage happens while your air conditioner was running the power outage forced the hard-working air conditioner to stop suddenly then immediately turn itself back on.
2. Hard Start Kit
Starting up is hard to do.
The compressor is the heart of the air conditioner. When it tries to start, it uses a lot of amps which is very hard on the components used to start the system. The more difficult it is for a compressor to start, the more wear and tear is happening to your air conditioner. If a compressor fails to start altogether, no air conditioning for you. A Hard Start Kit is a type of capacitor that gives your air conditioner extra help when it is struggling to turn on. This is a component that does not come standard on most air conditioners so we recommend adding one to your system.
3. Upgraded Contactor
The contactor is a switch for the air conditioner that turns the system on. Most standard capacitors are not capable of monitoring the amount of power going into the air conditioner. Your cooling system needs sufficient power to turn on and if it tries to turn on without sufficient power, this can hurt the system. A better, upgraded contactor will automatically stop the air conditioner from trying to come on if there is not enough power to do it harmlessly.
As we said before, the hardest task you ask your air conditioner to do is to start. The easier you make the starting process with a hard start kit, and ensure it does it with enough power by using an upgraded capacitor, your air conditioner will last longer and run better.