Signs your HVAC system may be in trouble

Your heat­ing, ven­ti­la­tion and air con­di­tion­ing (HVAC) sys­tem is one of the most impor­tant and expen­sive sys­tems in your home. Detect­ing issues ear­ly can help you plan for repairs or equip­ment replace­ment.

Equip­ment func­tion­al­i­ty issues can affect your elec­tric­i­ty use, which may result in high­er ener­gy bills. The age of your equip­ment can be a major fac­tor in func­tion. The lifes­pan of a heat­ing and cool­ing sys­tem ranges from 15 to 20 years.

Prop­er main­te­nance and low­er use can increase the life of the equip­ment. To find out the age of your sys­tem, look for the man­u­fac­tured date print­ed on the unit’s name­plate. If you can’t find it, search online using the mod­el num­ber or call the man­u­fac­tur­er.

If your sys­tem is approach­ing or past the 20-year mark, it’s time to start sav­ing for a new sys­tem and gath­er­ing replace­ment esti­mates. Here are a few warn­ing signs to also watch out for that might indi­cate whether your HVAC sys­tem needs to be repaired or replaced:

• A/C is not as cool as usu­al. If the air from your air con­di­tion­er is warm—or not as cool as it usu­al­ly feels—the equip­ment may have an issue. It could be a prob­lem with the com­pres­sor or a refrig­er­ant leak. Many refrig­er­ants, espe­cial­ly the ones used in old­er sys­tems, are harm­ful to the envi­ron­ment. Fix leaks before adding more refrig­er­ant. Spe­cial cer­ti­fi­ca­tions are required for han­dling refrig­er­ants, so hire a pro­fes­sion­al to ensure the work is done prop­er­ly.

• Low air­flow. If you aren’t get­ting good air­flow, it could be an easy fix, such as fil­ter replace­ment or open­ing closed dampers. If you’ve made these fix­es and air­flow is not at nor­mal lev­els, con­tact a pro­fes­sion­al. There could be a big­ger prob­lem with a motor or fan.

• Bad odors. Heat­ing and cool­ing sys­tems some­times smell when you first start them up for the sea­son. Those smells should go away quick­ly. Any seri­ous smells, such as burn­ing met­al, melt­ing plas­tic or nox­ious odors, are a sign your sys­tem is in trou­ble. If you smell those odors, turn your sys­tem off imme­di­ate­ly and con­tact a pro­fes­sion­al.

• Strange nois­es. Noise is typ­i­cal­ly asso­ci­at­ed with fans and motors in heat­ing and cool­ing sys­tems. Take note of any exces­sive or new nois­es. If your sys­tem is mak­ing any clunk­ing, clang­ing or whistling nois­es, turn it off and check the fil­ter. If that doesn’t solve it, reach out to a pro­fes­sion­al.

• Run­ning fre­quent­ly. Your sys­tem needs to run more to keep up on extreme weath­er days, but there might be an issue if it runs too often. Short cycling is when a sys­tem cycles on and off before com­plet­ing the heat­ing or cool­ing process. Con­tact a pro­fes­sion­al to diag­nose this issue.

Sev­er­al fac­tors come into play when decid­ing whether to fix exist­ing equip­ment or invest in new equip­ment. Con­sid­er the sever­i­ty of the issue, repair costs, the like­li­hood of addi­tion­al repairs, equip­ment lifes­pan and your bud­get.

The effi­cien­cy of your exist­ing sys­tem is also a con­sid­er­a­tion. Heat­ing and cool­ing tech­nol­o­gy improve­ments have come a long way in the past 20 years. Low­er oper­a­tion costs can off­set the cost of a new sys­tem over time.

Con­sid­er your options before you are in des­per­ate need, and get esti­mates from at least three con­trac­tors before mak­ing a deci­sion. Be sure to ask the pro­fes­sion­al: “If this was your home, what type of sys­tem would you install and why?” The best solu­tion for your home might be a dif­fer­ent type of equip­ment.

Miran­da Boutelle writes about ener­gy-effi­cien­cy top­ics for the Nation­al Rur­al Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive Asso­ci­a­tion, the nation­al trade asso­ci­a­tion rep­re­sent­ing near­ly 900 elec­tric co-ops.