The modern electro-mechanical air conditioner is a marvel of technology: a device that provides cool comfort to a building on a hot day just by circulating refrigerant to move heat from the indoor air, then distributing that air around the rooms.
Of course, the word just is doing the heavy lifting in that sentence, since air conditioning systems are complex and precise devices where many components must work in conjunction to create the cooling a house enjoys.
And that cooling has limits. You probably know that the AC keeping your home an oasis of relaxation doesn’t have infinite cooling power—it can’t make the house as cold as a freezer, even if you did want that. We’re going to use this post to look at what the cooling limits of your air conditioning in Athens, GA actually are.
People who aren’t in the HVAC industry often have misconceptions about how air conditioning systems work, specifically the role of refrigerant. Homeowners often imagine that refrigerant is a fuel for the air conditioner, something that will eventually run out and need to be refilled. 
Each spring, we recommend our customers arrange for professional maintenance to inspect and tune-up their air conditioning systems. Although it’s a “recommendation,” we don’t think of maintenance as just a beneficial service—it’s a necessary one if you want your air conditioner to have the longest service life with the fewest problems and lowest operating costs possible. 
Your air conditioning system attends a type of summer school. You want to make sure your air conditioner performs the best work during each summer, otherwise it’s time to either have the AC repaired or maybe replaced.
Your air conditioning system has gone through plenty this summer. The hot weather isn’t done yet, so you might have concerns about the AC’s continuing performance with all the stress it’s accumulated. It’s easy to make the mistake of thinking your air conditioner needs more refrigerant, at least “topped-off,” so it can get through the rest of the hot weather.
A central air conditioning system is designed to send air around the living spaces in a house to create an even spread of cooling. It won’t be perfect, as some rooms are harder to cool than others because of conditions like sun-exposure. But you’ll have a good idea of what your house feels like when the AC is on and working the way it should.
An air conditioning system that either stops sending around cool air or stops sending around any air at all is a serious problem during a hot Georgia summer. You may be enjoying the day indoors, and then abruptly your home’s temperature is rising toward tropical heatwave levels.
So you’ve realized that you have poor indoor air quality in your home and you’re just not getting it—what in the world is going on? You take good care of your home, you take the extra effort to make it look nice on top of keeping it clean, and you feel like your indoor air quality should be good because of this, right?
The compressor is the part of your air conditioner that puts in the most work over the summer. It’s basically the “heart” of the AC, the part where refrigerant is placed under pressure so it will circulate through the heat exchange process. The compressor is in danger of failing the older the air conditioner gets, and a failed compressor often means it’s more cost-effective to replace the AC than to replace only the compressor.
It would be much easier for you during the summer if you had an air conditioning system that could communicate with you exactly when something was wrong with it, what it was, and what steps need to be taken. Maybe one day we’ll have fully AI-driven air conditioners that will do this. Until then, we have to accept the warning signs an air conditioner can give us. One of the most obvious and easy-to-read signs is strange noises coming from the AC cabinets.
