Air conditioning problems can be hard to notice unless they make a lot of noise or drastically impact the temperature in your home. But catching these problems as early as possible — before they make much noise or have a dramatic effect — is the best way to protect the system and save money. Paying attention to how often your system cycles on and off can tell you a lot about its health if you can notice the sound. One of the most common problems related to cycles is short cycles.
What is short cycling?
When the temperature of your home deviates too far below or above the set temperature of your thermostat, the air conditioning system will cycle on to start returning the temperature to normal. But each cycle needs to run to completion in order to do its job. If your air conditioning shuts itself off before your home reaches the preferred temperature, it will have to start the cycle over again. That’s called a short cycle, and it causes a lot of problems because:
- Your preferred home temperature is never reached.
- The system will cycle on over and over again, and that’s a very energy-intensive process.
Both of these negative effects waste energy can increase the wear and tear on your system. While there can be numerous causes behind short cycling, there are a few things you can do to get the problem solved as soon as possible.
- Change the filter. You may see this advice for a lot of different air conditioning problems, and that’s because a lot of problems start as clogs. When your A/C can’t effectively filter air, the other parts feel the strain and things start to go wrong.
- Schedule an appointment. Everything from low refrigerant to a worn motor or an overpowered system can cause short cycling. Only a trained HVAC technician can get to the root of the problem.
Schedule an appointment today with Tri County Air Care for fast evaluations and repairs.