Colorado weather does not ease into the seasons. One week brings snow and the next brings heat pushing toward 90 degrees. Your heating and cooling equipment does not get to adjust gradually either. It goes from one job to the opposite in days, and that is when weak parts show up.
Why swings are harder than steady heat
A system that runs in one season for months settles into a pattern. The swings break that pattern. A furnace that sat unused for weeks is asked to run again on a cold morning, and an air conditioner that has not run since last September is asked to carry a hot afternoon. Parts that were quietly wearing out, like a capacitor on the outdoor unit or a flame sensor in the furnace, fail on the first real demand.
That is why the calls cluster right after a weather change. The equipment did not fail because of the weather. The weather is just the first time it was asked to work hard.
Three problems we see after a swing
- Dirty filters and coils. Our dry air and dust load them faster than in most places. A restricted filter makes either system work harder and, in cooling, can lead to a frozen coil.
- Debris on the outdoor unit. Cottonwood fluff, leaves, and grass clippings pack against the coil and cut airflow. Hail can bend the fins as well.
- The thermostat flipping between modes. On an automatic changeover setting, a cool morning followed by a warm afternoon can run the heat and the AC on the same day. That is hard on both and wasteful.
What you can do yourself
Replace or clean the filter, and keep doing it on a schedule. Turn the power off at the outdoor disconnect, clear debris from around the unit, and rinse the fins gently with a garden hose. Do not use a pressure washer, which bends them. Keep plants and fences a couple of feet back from the unit. During swing weeks, consider setting the thermostat to one mode, heat or cool, rather than automatic.
Run each system once before you need it. On a mild afternoon, switch to cooling for fifteen minutes and check that the air from the vents is cool and the outdoor fan is spinning. In the fall, do the same with the heat. If something is wrong, you find out on your schedule instead of the weather's.
It also helps to avoid running the AC on cool nights. Running it when outdoor temperatures are low can freeze the coil, and a frozen coil is a service call you did not need.
What a technician looks at
A seasonal check goes past the filter. For cooling, that means the refrigerant pressures, the capacitor, the coil, the drain line, and the electrical connections. For heating, the heat exchanger, the igniter and flame sensor, the burners, and the safety controls. A weak part found on a scheduled visit costs far less than the same part found during a heat wave, when everyone is calling at once.
If it has been a year or more since your last service, now is a good time to book it. Our maintenance membership covers both the heating and cooling visits, with priority scheduling.
When to call
Call if the system is blowing air that is not the temperature you set, running constantly, short-cycling, making new noises, or leaking water. We cover cooling at our cooling services page, and for homes in the south metro we have local pages, including Castle Rock and Centennial. To book a visit, call (303) 699-1417.