HVAC issues come in various grades of severity. Since certain problems can immediately affect your health, safety and ability to stay comfortable in your Ocean City, MD home, they rise to the level of true emergencies. To help you determine what to do about your HVAC-related troubles, we’d like to explain exactly what counts as an HVAC emergency and what doesn’t.
What Counts as an Emergency?
Although there are numerous possible HVAC problems out there, many don’t count as full-fledged HVAC emergencies. This is either because some problems are not serious enough to warrant an urgent response or because the causes of certain issues have no direct relation to the kind of work that HVAC technicians do.
So, what do HVAC industry professionals consider genuine emergencies? Since the following things all pose a direct threat to your safety, they sit at the top of the list: electrical issues, gas leaks, carbon monoxide leaks and refrigerant leaks. Problems with electrical wiring may spark fires, propane and natural gas may ignite and carbon monoxide and refrigerant are both highly toxic.
Secondly, anything that impinges on the current performance of your HVAC system almost certainly counts as an emergency. If your system either completely fails to cool or heat your home or does so only intermittently, you surely have an urgent situation.
A prime illustration of this would be if your HVAC starts short cycling, which is when it turns on and off without finishing its heating or cooling cycles. In severe cases, short cycling can cause extensive damage to system components or system failure.
Any strange smells or sounds also indicate that you have a rather dire situation on your hands. Since your HVAC system should operate odorlessly, this is especially the case with smells. To give only a few common examples, refrigerant smells ether-like, burning odors might suggest electrical problems and the smell of dirty socks often points to the presence of unwanted biological growth in your system.
It’s normal for your HVAC system to make a slight humming noise as it works. If you haven’t used your system in a while, you may also hear temporary popping noises. However, hissing, squealing, rumbling, banging, vibrating and similar noises all mean that something is wrong.
What Doesn’t Count?
Now that we’ve established what counts as an HVAC emergency, we’d like to help you think even more clearly about this topic by showing you what doesn’t count. The principle that we mentioned above, which concerns tangible dangers and direct malfunctions, can guide you here.
For example, although routine maintenance is especially important for your HVAC system — so important that not servicing it regularly may eventually trigger an emergency — the need for it is not itself an emergency. Also, though you should change your system’s filters about once every three months, merely having some dirty filters does not count as a catastrophe. The fact you can change or clean the filters on your own makes this all the more true.
Furthermore, if the weather happens to be mild when your system comes to require repairs, this is not an emergency. In this situation, there’s no serious or immediate threat to your ability to remain comfortable. Moreover, unless your older HVAC system has completely stopped working, you are not in an emergency if you’d like to install a new system.
Finally, there is the issue of power outages. Although these can certainly be concerning, dealing with them should not merit an urgent call to your HVAC technician.
How to Prevent or Counteract Emergencies
Suppose that your particular difficulties are real HVAC emergencies. What should you do then?
Above all, you should request immediate professional help. Though you might be able to prevent some mishaps by cleaning your filters, scheduling tune-ups and not overusing your system, true emergencies are for experienced technicians to handle.
If you encounter an emergency HVAC situation in your Ocean City, MD home, don’t waste any time. Call Griffith Energy Services and ask for our HVAC repair services today.
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