When your AC falls behind in extreme heat

Improper sizing for an HVAC system is one of the biggest reasons why a house can be uncomfortable. Whenever a system is oversized cuz the general thumb back in the day was like, "Hey, we'll just we'll just bump you up half a ton." Anyways, it's a terrible idea because it doesn't remove humidity from your house if you oversize it. So, I don't want to oversize that system cuz that creates more problems than whenever the system was undersized. Cuz an undersized system actually does a better job removing humidity from the home than a system that is oversized. And so, if the system is oversized, some symptoms you may be experiencing is high humidity within the house. You may also be experiencing like, you know, during the winter time maybe the furnace is too big for the home as well where it's providing too much heat and you you know, it dries the house out too much. And so, you'll see if your lines on like the glue adhesives will will start to crack and so like that. So, you got you know, if the humidity level doesn't stay maintained within the house, it can those are some symptoms that can happen if it's if it's oversized. And then, whenever the system is oversized especially during the summer time is it'll turn off and on so which is called short cycling. Very very fast and what that does is it doesn't allow the oils that are within that compressor to effectively circulate through the system appropriately. And and so, it's it's very difficult on that system to to short cycle. And so, oversizing the system can result in premature breakdowns, the system not lasting nearly as long as what you want it to. And so, cuz at the end of the we want those systems to last gosh 15 to 20 years if they're sized if they're sized right for the home and you know, everything is it's a perfect install. And so, that's what we want. That's what we want to shoot for. And so, but if it's oversized, it's going to break down more frequently than than than what you want it to. Hey guys, hope you enjoyed this video. If you have questions, feel free to leave a comment. If you want to learn more, click the link below. Your home. >> [music]

Think of comfort as a system. The AC equipment, honestly, really matters. But, so does the ductwork, attic, windows, thermostat location, airflow, humidity, and homeowner habits. Guys, for the best results, you know, they come from looking at the whole home instead of just one part of that home. So, take into account the entire house, how your insulation levels are, you what type of system do you have? Do you have any kinks in your ductwork? Windows in that room, are they big windows? Are they small windows? All of these things are contributing factors to how well your air conditioner's going to cool your house off on the hottest months of the year.

It's cooling, just not as good as it used to. That's your system telling you something. Gradual performance loss is a symptom. It's not just how old systems act. By the time most people call us, that problem's been building for an entire season. >> Your pros. >> [music]

Especially whenever it gets this hot outside, it's really common for systems to have long run times because it's got to remove all that heat. Especially whenever, you know, we get an excess of 95 to up to 100° temperatures. You got a lot of heat infiltration in houses and the air conditioners have to remove all of that heat that's infiltrating. So, get long run times and that's really hard on capacitors, compressors, and condenser fan motors.

All the meteorologists are in agreement here. This is not a drill. It is going to be hot tomorrow. It's hitting 98° with a heat index pushing 105 and don't forget about the humidity. And this is not a drill. Right now, your AC is either ready or it's not at all. And here's what you need to do today before the heat really sets in. Go outside, look at your condensing unit. If the fan isn't spinning as fast as it should be or it's making a grinding or whining noise, or if you've got weeds and debris packed around it, your system is in desperate need of some TLC and might not make it through the heat. Because once the heat wave locks in, every HVAC company in the state is going to be slammed. You don't want to be the family that's sweating it out waiting for two or three days for a technician and being the one who's caught in the heat. So, if you need us, we're here, we're local, we're fast, and we answer the phone every time. Here we go, guys. Let's get after it. >> Jarrod's [singing]

And sometimes, after, you know, long stressful summers, much like your local HVAC guy, their valves are out. They're just They're just worn out. They can't do what they did at the beginning of the season. And if your compressor has its valves out, it's going to continue to cool. It'll be one of those systems where, like, in the evening it's able to reach its set point, in the morning reaches its set point, but then those peak days, that peak middle of the day time, whenever it's not able to keep up and it's peak heat outside, well, that is going to show us, "Hey, the valves are probably out in this compressor." Meaning it's not able to compress all of the refrigerant and we have some cool gas escaping to the condensed side of the line. And when that happens, it's going to continue running, it's going to continue cooling your house, but it's not going to be able to reach the set point. And so, if your air conditioner has ran all day long, has never reached the set point, basically one of two things I'm going to look at and say, "Are the valves out in this compressor? And how good is our insulation?" Those two things right there will tell me everything I need to know.

is bigger better. Air conditioning really doesn't quite work that way. Whereas bigger is better, so if somebody's got a I don't know, 1,500 sq ft house and you know, three or three and a half ton unit would take care of their unit. They're going to go, "Just go ahead and give me a five. Let's cool this puppy off." You know, and that's kind of a tough deal, too, because, you know, we we we size units to take care of the heat that's in the house. And if we oversize a unit and make it too big, now then we're not going to get the run time on the unit to take the moisture and the humidity out of the house. You know, so if we put a five ton unit where should have been a three ton unit, we can cool you off and we can get you to 70° in a heartbeat, but we do that so fast that the unit doesn't run long enough to take the humidity out of the air, too. So, you may have 70° air inside, but your humidity may be 70%. You know, and that'll feel sticky and clammy to you. Whereas if we can get a little bit of run time with it and we can take out the humidity with the air and lower the temperature at the same time, now then we can get it down to 70° or whatever and maybe get our relative humidity down to 55%, 50% along in there, which feels a whole lot more comfortable. So, bigger is not always better. So, I would say that myth is probably busted.

How do you know [music] if your HVAC system is under sized in your home? Some some symptoms that you may be experiencing is maybe hot or cold spots within certain parts of the house. You also know notice where during the summer time it's that [music] system is running all the time. So if you hear it kicking on you and it's and it's continuing you and you never hear it turn off. And so some other symptoms that you may be experiencing within your house is during the summer time that system is running you you're probably going to experience maybe some higher utility bills than what you anticipate because the system just never shuts off. Hey guys, hope you enjoyed this video. If you have questions, feel free to leave a comment. [music] If you want to learn more, click the link below. Your bros. >> [music]

If you're experiencing issues where your unit's running for a really long time, it's never quite reaching the temperature that you're that you're setting it to on the thermostat, it's possible that you could have an undersized unit. So, I was at a house yesterday and the issue was that his unit was constantly running and the temperature never reached what the thermostat was set to. So, his unit, being a 3 and 1/2 ton, was undersized for for the square footage of the house. And so, it was constantly trying to remove 42,000 BTUs. His house was gaining more than 42,000 BTUs. So, the unit was constantly running and never able to reach the the set temperature at the thermostat. Um if you have questions, comments, concerns about and we'd love to talk to you about it and uh see what we can do to get you get you get you some help.

Your system is running non-stop. In July, long run times can be normal, but non-stop operation paired with poor comfort, that's not normal. If the home keeps getting warmer, the system is losing the battle. That can be airflow, refrigerant, mechanical issue, or house load related issues. Here's what you can do. Change the filter if it's dirty. A restricted filter is one of the simplest ways to make an AC struggle. Replace it and give the system time to recover. If it still struggles, the filter wasn't the only problem.

This is a really interesting question, but the short answer is it depends. Your unit should run all day long on the hottest day of the year. So, if it's the hottest day of the year and your unit is cycling on and off, there's a good chance it's oversized.

If you've been watching the weather, you know that they're talking about a heat dome setting over most of the United States and the Great Plains. So, Oklahoma, we're going to catch kind of the edge of it. So, really and truly, it's just going to be summertime for the first time this year for us. But something that you can do uh is one, make sure that your filters are changed, two, make sure your condenser has been cleaned, and three, make sure that you adjust your thermostat so we're not going to have endless cycling to prepare for the heat dome. Okeis, you know what to do. It's basically just going to be summertime for us. But if you're new here, uh the thing that's going to hurt us the most is that the lows are going to be in the mid70s to 80s and it's not going to give our systems a real break in the nighttime to really help us save some of that cycling. So, make sure that your temperature is set, you know, maybe a couple degrees above normal. Make sure that your filters are changed and make sure you've had a tuneup because those low temperatures are what get us. So, have a great day. Stay after it.

A lot of times we have intermittent prompt and something will do something just intermittently. If you can catch that on footage and send it to us, that's always a big help to let us know kind of what we need to look for and stuff like that because intermittent problems. We've had lots of times where we show up to the house and everything's running fine and there's no initial indication of what's going wrong. Um, and then we're called back out about a week later because now it did it again. So knowing why it did it, what you did, what changes you made, did you change something on the thermostat, did you do this, do this? Definitely will help us to make sure that if it's an intermittent problem, we can further diagnose it on things like that.

When a system is undersized, the heat load in the house is really really big. You've got a lot. Maybe in the in some of the variables could be maybe it's an older home. Maybe you lack in you lack insulation. You lack it you know, it's not necessarily the most energy efficient house in the terms of summer time. So during the summer time, you know, it's really really hot. Energy is being added to the house very quickly. That system if it's undersized is going to have a hard time removing that energy that's within the home and putting it outside. And so whenever you're sizing your system if it is undersized, problems that you may uh you may have within the home is kind of inconsistencies. So like during you will say at night is when it cools down but it's your you like oh yeah, it works great. Whenever it gets above a certain temperature, that system is just going to run all day. It's going to have a really hard time keeping up based off of the the heat load that's being added to your house. Hey guys, hope you enjoyed that video. If you're interested in an instant estimate for either HVAC or plumbing upgrades, click the link below. We have all of our pricing available on our website. Your home's >> [singing] [music]

So, in Oklahoma, with most homes that we design, we're basically designing for it to be able to keep 70° to 72° on a 100° day. So, if it's 105° outside, you're going to see a longer-than-normal run time, especially when compared to the rest of the year. So, if it's cycling on and off, it's just having to work hard to get you there. Well, look at the temperature outside, see if that temperature is 95 plus. If it's 95 plus and it's still satisfying, it's shutting on and off as it should, that just means that we have increased run times because it's working hard to make sure that you're comfortable. But, if it's just running and never satisfying, and let's say you have it set to 72, and you have it, you know, it's 78 in house, or it's 75, and it just never seems to quite get there. Well, that's indicative of a couple different things that we're going to touch on, but that is the kind of when you need to get a pro involved because if it's not keeping up, there's some easy things that you could do, like your filters, your return airs, your duct work. Make sure that things aren't just absolutely catastrophically wrong, but it's also indicative of maybe some valves in the compressor going out, or refrigerant leaks, or things that would require a professional to get involved with.

It's 100 degrees outside and your system is not working. Here's why. It's 100 degrees in Oklahoma and your house is sitting at 78 even though you've set your thermostat to 74. Is something broken? Maybe not. Most systems are designed to hold about a 20-degree difference from outside. When it's 105, with a heat index even higher, your AC system never gets to cycle off. So any weakness shows up super fast at those temperatures: a dirty coil, a low refrigerant charge, a tired capacitor. So here's the test. If your house held its temperature through the last heat advisory, your system passed. If it fell behind three or four degrees every afternoon, it's telling you something that's worth checking before the next 100-degree stretch, not during it. That'd be a good time to call. Have a great day.

Why a May check matters more than most people think. A May check is really going to test a lot of those small components. We're testing the capacitors. We're checking on refrigerant levels. We're looking at airflow across all the vents in your house. A lot of times when we can check these really small things and we can find small problems here and there, that means that we can stop really big problems down the line. So, you know, a couple hundred-dollar fix right now is going to save you a thousand or more dollar fix down the road. So, that's why May checks matter way more than most people think. >> Your Home >> [singing] [music]