A house that sits closed up from October to April asks for different things than a house that runs all year. We open a lot of these every spring, and the failures are predictable enough that you can get ahead of most of them.
Work through this before the first hot weekend, not on it.
Before you turn anything on
Look at the outdoor unit. Winter fills these with leaves and spring fills them with cottonwood. Clear anything packed against the fins or sitting on top of it. If something has nested inside over the winter, and it happens more than you'd guess, don't just run the unit and hope.
Check the disconnect. Some people pull the outdoor disconnect for the winter. If yours is out, put it back before you call anybody about a system that won't start.
Change the filter. Even in an empty house, a filter that's sat for six months isn't a fresh filter.
Look at the condensate line. A drain that dried out and clogged over the winter will back up the first day the system runs hard, and the water goes wherever it can. It's the most common preventable damage we see in seasonal houses.
Then turn it on early
Run the AC for a full hour on a mild day well before you need it. You're checking that the compressor starts, the air coming out is really cold, and nothing's dripping where it shouldn't be.
A system that hasn't run in six months is a system where a weak capacitor has had six months to get weaker. Finding that on a Tuesday in April is a small job. Finding it on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend with a house full of people is a very different experience, and so is the wait.
Specific to houses that sit
- Dry traps and stale air. A musty smell on the first run is common. If it doesn't clear once the house has been aired out and the system has run, there may be moisture somewhere in the ductwork.
- Mice in the ductwork. Unpleasant, and more common in a house nobody's been in. You'll usually smell it before you see it.
- Humidity control. A closed house with the system off gets humid, and humidity is what grows things. If you leave the place empty for long stretches, consider leaving the system set to a reasonable temperature rather than fully off.
- Thermostat batteries. They die on a schedule nobody tracks. Replace them at opening.
If you'd rather somebody else did it
A spring tune up covers all of this plus the parts you can't check without instruments. We do a lot of these across Osage Beach, Lake Ozark, Sunrise Beach and the Four Seasons area every April and May, and the ones booked early are the ones that don't turn into a Saturday emergency in July.
Call (573) 693-8863 to get on the list.
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