I’m not too sure about you, but I for one, know that cooling your home by leaving the freezer door open does not work very well….and having to defrost the freezer after is not much fun either.

Last month I talked about some simple maintenance tips and things to watch for to keep your air conditioning unit in good shape. Today we are talking about frost building up

So what does leaving a freezer door open have to do with your air conditioning unit?

If you left the freezer door open but put a fan and blow air in and out would it frost up the same? probably not. The airflow across the cooling coils stops the frost from building up. It’s the same with your airconditioning. Low airflow across the coils can cause them to freeze up. There can be other reasons for frost to build up, but sometimes its as easy as checking your furnace filter.

Checking on the insulation on your cooling lines on the outside for frost building up, some condensation is ok but frost building up or oil stains are a good indicator that something else is wrong and you should do more investigation or call for servicing into the cause.
Airflow Matters

warm air is less dense and needs less of a push to flow through all of the ductwork. In the cooling season, the cold dense air needs a little more help to flow.

So we turn the furnace up to high speed to get that air to flow. The cooling coils inside the furnace need airflow to help keep them from freezing up as we talked about how the freezer with the door left open and no airflow will ice up, but if you put a fan and move the air across the coils it won’t.

For the few people that still have a humidifier installed on their furnace, it’s important to make sure you close the damper on the furnace so you to cause a short circuit loop and cause the coil to freeze up.

Keep checking back I will be posting about why I think humidifies are a bad idea and cause more problems than solutions in the near future.