Skip to player
Skip to main content
Skip to footer
Search
Connect
Watch fullscreen
Like
Comments
Bookmark
Share
Add to Playlist
Report
Air conditioning maintenance during the summer season
AccuWeather
Follow
today
Nicholas De Leon of Consumer Reports joins the AccuWeather Network to explain the importance of air conditioning efficiency and maintenance throughout the summer season when they're needed the most.
Category
🗞
News
Transcript
Display full video transcript
00:00
With summer temperatures running high over much of the country, your air conditioner is working
00:04
over time. But is it working smart? Well, we're going to find out. Consumer Reports Senior Tech
00:09
reporter Nicholas de Leon joins us with tips to stay cool and save money. Thanks for joining us
00:18
here this morning on AccuWeather Early. Thank you for having me. All right, the locator is important.
00:24
Tucson, Arizona. Yes. That's somewhere you need your air conditioning working well.
00:28
How can I tell if my air conditioning is working efficiently and what should I even be checking?
00:35
Yeah, well, there's a couple of things to keep in mind when using your air conditioner. The first
00:39
tip we give folks is to make sure it's in the right place. Usually you want to put it in a
00:43
north-facing window or otherwise shady window because direct sunlight will just make it a lot
00:49
harder to cool a room effectively. Another tip that we give folks is if you've installed that
00:53
kind of spray foam around there to keep the seal in. When you put the air conditioner in for the
00:58
season, make sure that the foam is still intact because the UV from the sun can kind of break
01:03
down the foam. You can also just use caulk to kind of clean up all the cracks or whatever.
01:09
Another easy tip that we have for folks is to clean the filter regularly. You know, when you're
01:13
putting the AC for the first time this season, just take the filter out. It's usually just in the
01:17
front, running under some warm water, some soap, clean it. You should do that maybe every two months.
01:22
If you have a central AC system, that's when you would want a licensed HVAC guy to come and do that.
01:28
One thing we do advise folks to not use is the portable AC units. Those are the ones where the
01:34
unit's on the floor and it kind of like accordions up to the window. Those are pretty noisy. They're not
01:40
very efficient and they just use a lot of energy. So if you can, use the traditional AC window,
01:46
AC air conditioner. The other thing is to, you know, use curtains, blackout, you know, I'm in
01:52
Tucson, Arizona. It'll be about a hundred degrees today. It was about 115 last week, pretty much
01:57
every day. So I've got blackout curtains here in this office to make sure it doesn't get too warm
02:01
in here. But yeah, those are some general tips for folks. Obviously we test air conditioners all
02:07
the time. Last I checked, we have like 75 different models in our ratings at consumerreports.org from all
02:13
the big brands, LG, Black and Decker, Bridger, you name it, we've got it. So we've got all the
02:18
information there. If you don't, if you want to get really in depth with this. And you mentioned
02:22
some tips about some mistakes people make that hurt their AC's performance. People, a lot of folks
02:29
will just kind of crank the AC all the way up to the max of the maximum cold. That's, that can be bad
02:34
because all that's telling your AC to do is to try to hit an extraordinarily low number. And depending
02:39
upon the outside temperature, it's just going to keep running and running and running until it hits
02:43
that almost impossibly low number to hit. So what you want to do is really try to make,
02:48
get a balance between the outside temperature and what you're comfortable inside. We find that around
02:52
78 degrees, that's what I keep it in my house during the day, 78 degrees. That's, that's not as warm as
03:00
it may sound, but it is, it's cool enough. We would also recommend to use ceiling fans. I think the
03:05
department of energy has said that a ceiling fan can reduce the feel of a temperature by like four
03:10
degrees. So maybe set your thermostat to 76 or whatever, and then let the ceiling fan take it
03:17
from there. One thing I did forget to mention is to make sure that you've got an up-to-date
03:21
thermostat. You know, nowadays I've got smart thermostats that that'll learn your patterns,
03:25
learn when you're home, learn when you're not home, just to make sure that you're not wasting
03:29
money cooling your house when it doesn't need to be cooled. Excellent. You answered a lot of our
03:34
questions. All right. This one I think is a good one. Is it better to constantly run your AC,
03:38
or if you spend a lot of time out of your house, is it better to turn it off and then, you know,
03:42
turn it back on when you get home? What's your advice? The advice would be to get a smart thermostat,
03:47
which will take all that guesswork out of it actually, just because it'll know, you know,
03:51
if you're not home, it doesn't really make a ton of sense to cool the house to 70 degrees. So
03:56
that's, that's smart thermostats is a smart investment nowadays. And when should I replace my AC
04:02
or how long should a unit last? Let's talk about the indoor unit, the unit that you put in the
04:09
window. Of course. Yeah. We generally recommend every eight to 10 years. So if it's been a while
04:14
since you've got your last air conditioner, you may want to replace, but eight to 10 years is kind of
04:19
what we recommend folks. All right. Consumer Reports senior tech reporter, Nicholas DeLeon. Thank
04:25
you so much for joining us here on AccuEther Early and stay cool out there in Tucson.
04:29
Thank you. Stay cool.
Recommended
0:32
|
Up next
Thunderstorms drench the Northeast on the last day of June
AccuWeather
yesterday
2:22
Powerful storms target the central US
AccuWeather
yesterday
1:52
Another day of severe storms in the forecast for the Northeast
AccuWeather
yesterday
2:10
Severe weather season approaches
AccuWeather
2/28/2025
5:09
Here's the top weather story for Aug. 25
AccuWeather
8/25/2023
3:26
How to prepare your home for freezing temperatures
AccuWeather
1/9/2025
5:29
Here's the top weather story for June 29
AccuWeather
6/29/2023
5:56
Car care tips for the spring season
AccuWeather
5/9/2025
1:45
Watch out for sunburns during the spring season
AccuWeather
4/27/2025
7:54
Study confirms AccuWeather the leader in hurricane forecasting accuracy
AccuWeather
5/24/2025
5:03
The impact of extreme heat to the power grid
AccuWeather
6/23/2025
3:13
How pollen is intensifying rain
AccuWeather
5/9/2025
2:25
Getting your home ready for the colder months
AccuWeather
10/24/2024
3:18
How to maintain your pool all summer
AccuWeather
6/13/2025
1:51
Scorching heat in store for some ball games in this week's sports forecast
AccuWeather
7/14/2022
2:02
The best and worst weather of the day for Sept. 1
AccuWeather
9/1/2023
3:48
Historic hurricane season in the eyes of the Hurricane Hunters
AccuWeather
11/14/2024
2:52
Bernie Rayno's mother joins with AccuWeather
AccuWeather
5/12/2023
3:09
Window shades that respond to weather? One of the latest solutions to our climate troubles
AccuWeather
4/3/2025
3:09
Climate in the News, Oct. 25
AccuWeather
10/25/2024
3:54
Winter deicing operations in Philadelphia airport
AccuWeather
1/29/2025
1:36
AccuWeather's 2020 US summer forecast
AccuWeather
4/29/2020
2:03
AccuWeather's 2023 US summer forecast
AccuWeather
5/3/2023
3:09
How hurricanes can fuel wildfires in Southeast
AccuWeather
3/15/2025
1:45
Possible tropical development near the Southeast for late October
AccuWeather
10/19/2022