The purpose of the air conditioner is to keep the house cool. While almost every homeowner has an air conditioner in their home, studies show that most of the people don’t use their units as well as they should which makes them not only work harder than they should, it also makes the units break down too often.

Do you have an air conditioner in your home? Here are a few things you might be doing wrong with it as given by HVAC companies:

Allowing too much outdoor air into the house

There is nothing wrong with enjoying clean air into the house, but you should note that allowing a lot of it in makes the air conditioner work harder. Air from the outside is warm. This means that when you allow a lot of it in, you make the house warm.

For you to cool the house you need to turn on the air conditioner which consumes energy. Do you want to keep the air conditioner from working too much? Keep the windows closed. In fact, you should cover them with light curtains that allow a little bit of light in.

While the house won’t be as lit as when you would have the windows open, keeping the windows closed will prevent a lot of air from getting in thus you don’t need to use the air conditioner. As a consequence, you don’t spend much on your monthly energy bill.

Aiming to save too much

You must have heard that by setting your thermostat back a few degrees you will save a lot of money, right? This is true, but this doesn’t mean that you should go overboard with it.

When you set the thermostat a few degrees back when you aren’t in the house, you prevent the air conditioner from spending a lot of energy maintaining a temperature that you don’t even need.

While many homeowners know this and it’s a great tactic, some of these people go overboard and set their thermostats too many degrees back. For example, they will set their units up to 5 degrees back.

In addition to this failing to keep your house cool by the time you are getting back into the house, it makes the air conditioner work much harder than it should. As you might have guessed, this results in the air conditioner consuming a lot of energy in the long run. The overworking also reduces the lifespan of the unit.

How can you get the most from the tactic? Simple. Set the thermostat not more than 4 degrees back.

Allowing too much dirt to accumulate on the air conditioner

This is a common mistake made by lazy homeowners. Most of them think that since the air conditioner is working properly, it doesn’t need any attention. Far from this.

One of the most important things you need to do to your air conditioner is to clean it regularly. Clean both the indoor and outdoor units. You also should pay attention to the air filters. These are the units that control the air getting in and out of the house.

Allowing too much dirt to accumulate in the air filter is harmful as it makes the air conditioner work too hard thus it is always at the brink of coming to a halt. A dirty air filter also makes the air in the house stale.

The cool thing is that you don’t need to hire an expert to help you with the cleaning of the unit. You can do it by yourself. When cleaning, take care of the coils. Ensure that you don’t dent or damage them in any way.

Expecting too much from the air conditioner

Most of the homeowners living in extremely hot places expect their air conditioners to cool their houses more than they are capable of. For example, some of the homeowners will expect their units to bring the temperature from 100 degrees to 60 degrees or even less.  Which is impossible.

According to air conditioning companies Vienna VA, the air conditioner can only bring down the temperature by only 20 degrees. For you to make your house much cooler, you should consider investing in better insulation.