Westside can heat up quite a bit, and there’s no better way to go from cool to cranky than with an air conditioner that’s not only not blowing cold air but also making some pretty strange noises. If you can still hear yourself think, let’s talk about those weird sounds:
Clunking or whirring, or pretty much any sound you can’t quite put your finger on, can be a sign of loose components, something that’s out of alignment, or parts that are nearing their not-so-glorious end. Either way, unless you’re super handy with tools (and even if you are), we recommend putting these sounds on blast as the siren song for your office to schedule a quick inspection before any of these issues turns your home into an ice-cold commercial. No one wants that.
Now, we must discuss the thermostat, the little device in our homes that sometimes seems to forget all it knows about the set temperature. There are two ways a thermostat can fail: one, it doesn't sense temperature correctly (the sensors are faulty), and two, it doesn't send the correct signal to the system to tell it to do whatever it is supposed to do to make the air temperature match what you've programmed. It's a little multitasking device that can sometimes get a bit muddled in its communications and forget what it's supposed to be doing. When that happens, the professional can sort it and get the little fella back on track without you having to worry about it.
Don't ignore the airflow issues, either. You could have your ducts blocked or your fan motor on the fritz, but one way or another, if the rooms adjacent to yours don't feel breezy and are, instead, brother- and sister-sweaty, then your air conditioner is likely just a very inefficient box of half tricks and half cool that doesn't have your back (or front).
And, okay: You're feeling a breeze in one room while another stays unbearably still. What gives? Try this for technique: Aim and throw your cool-air pass into and through your bogus hot spots.
