I inherited an air conditioner with my place, but don't really know much about maintenance, other than cleaning out the filter. The thing is that I don't really use it, except in extreme temperature emergencies, but a neighbour told me I should stoke it up several times a year to keep the compressor seals lubricated. Well, it's been about 18 months since it last run and it's going fine at the moment after replacing the leaking AAA batteries in the remote. Seems it can't be operated without the remote (which seems a dumb idea to me) but it quickly chopped 32 degrees down to 26 in no time. I don't know much about air cons, but is this advice about needing to run the thing regularly kosher or just an urban myth? I'm sitting here in a nice, cool, humidity-free environment, but thinking of GHG emissions, my next power bill, etc, .... all for the sake of routine maintenance?

Probably correct Wazza, car aircons definately need running occassionly, to lube the seals.
Only need a few mins tho

Funny you should raise air conditioning. We have one in our study (where we spend an inordinate amount of time!) and turned it on yesterday to find that it wasn't really doing much. Very disappointed in it's performance. Not cooling, not even blowing much air in. Hasn't been run since last summer.

Today we did some maintenance on it. That involved taking the cover off the outdoor unit (it's a split system) and finding that the cooling fins were sort of caked with dust/dirt etc. (must have been that dust storm we had a couple of years ago.) So My Beloved got out his air compressor and cleaned it. Boy has it made a difference! Whereas last night it was struggling to get the temperature down a couple of degrees, today it got it down 4 degrees in just on an hour, and got so cool we had to turn it off!

Then we checked the maintenance instructions which said that we should call the installer once a year to clean the outdoor unit! oops!

Taking the cover off involved unscrewing 5 screws (with the power turned off of course).

As for whether it needs to be run regularly, I have no idea. Ours gets a bit of a work out in summer and then sits idle for 9-10 months. Maybe we should give it a burst in winter too.

Just as an aside. Below where I am currently typing there are 3 advertisements. Two of them are to do with air conditioning!

hi wassa

yes it is a good idea to run it a couple of times a year, dont worry the gas wont leak out like cars as the motor and compressor are built in one enclosure. yeah batterys need to be replaced, and filters cleaned and make sure your drain tube is clear of blockages, as it will collect water when cooling and it needs to get out.
stu

Wazza's got an airconditioner ?!!!

Our split system has the two pieces in place but it is not connected!!! Its been like this for over 4 years and with a 42 degree heat today you could imagine how we felt!! I just cant afford to get it connected!! Whats worse is that the brand new pool we used to rely on when it got hot flew up and on to a star picket in a wind storm and it had water in it!!!! Ripped to shreds!!

Should I be feeling guilty for running my air-con all the time? I don't have any problem with dry heat, but humidity I can't stand. During the summer the air-con is on all the time, and it's reverse cycle so it covers all our heating in the winter too.

Keeping the filters clean as well as the occasional blow-out of the heat exchanger outside will allow your unit to run much more efficiently. I also don't set it on a ridiculous level either; just enough to make things comfortable. If my house was designed better it would take advantage of the winter sun and the summer breezes, but it's an old weatherboard dwelling with no consideration to conserving energy.

Also, one of the reasons I wanted to get solar panels was to offset the cost of running the unit. I'm not concerned about its GHG emissions because we do so much more than the average sheeple to conserve energy and emissions. I'll allow myself to have this luxury.

Yes you should run it every few months or so for a few minutes as someone already suggested. We have ducted aircon and I have noticed if I don't run it every couple of months it will have a spaser when I really need it...

I wouldn't feel guilty myself as I do the same and I hate the humidity too. We are out all day at work so I only run it at night and the weekends....

Wazza wrote:
Coming from 40 + years in North Qld and now living in Northern Rivers are of NSW, they seem like moderate temps to me Though I admit I went down the creek for a swim for an hour today, lovely. It's still mildly amusing to hear the locals bitching about the "heat". Hell, I even use the pedestal fan (not at night, it;s cool enough not to need it) but being on a stand alone solar, my power comes from the Sun, so no pesky CO2, radiation and other emissions.

As to the A/C question, my Dad used to tell me you were supposed to run the every 6 months for 10 mins or so. I never bothered asking my Refrig. mechanic when I owned my business's and he used to come out every month to do routine maintenance.

As another poster asked, should you feel guilty ? Not if you don't feel guilty... I am not sure what guilt has to do with it but no matter how you "cut the mustard", the damage done by Millions of homes doing that exact thing is the root cause of what ails the Planet. There does seem to be some sort of cognitive disconnect though... ie Most people know it's destructive but do it anyway, all sorts of justifications coming to the fore. It's interesting to watch some of those very same people lambaste "others" for other destructive behaviors.

roadwarrior wrote:
If its just humidity, does your unit have a "dry" mode? That runs it as a de-humidifier without the cooling which is much more power efficient.

Also, aircon is very inefficient for heating. Gas (if you can get it) is a much better option. Its not that the AC its self doesn't heat efficiently, the inefficiencies are all in the transmission losses to get the electricity to your house. For every unit of energy in a lump of coal burned at a power station only 1/3 of that unit makes it to your house so a 1KW electric heater is really consuming 3KW equivalent of coal at the power station. With gas, the efficiency is something like 95%.

We used to run like you with the AC on pretty much all the time. After a few years of making the house more thermally efficient, we now use the AC maybe 5 times a year. I am looking at some more mods for next year that should cut even that out.

Up till 20 odd years ago, no one had air-conditioning in the Sydney region and they survived just fine. They did a bunch of things that we seem to have forgotten about over the last few years to stay cool without AC.

Cheers
Dave