An air conditioner can often seem like a magical device. We understand how we get heat from furnaces and fireplaces—combustion gives off warmth. But an AC is a box or set of boxes that somehow creates cool air, the opposite of fire. Because an air conditioner can feel like a remarkable device, people might treat them as if they don’t have limits. They can cool a house down as much as necessary.
Of course, air conditioners aren’t magic, and they do have limits. An AC cools a house by moving heat from the indoor air and exhausting it outside, and there is a capacity to how much heat an air conditioner can draw from a house. We’re going to talk about the limits of your air conditioning system and how it affects the way you cool your home.
High efficiency
If you’ve lived in Colorado Springs through at least one winter season, you know that the arrival of March is no guarantee that the weather will just keep getting warmer as we move into spring. Nonetheless, it 
This week is the official start of fall. Temperatures, of course, don’t strictly obey the calendar, and you may still need to rely on running your air conditioner for a few more weeks. But it’s a transition time, and this is an ideal point in the year to stop and consider how well your air conditioner performed over the summer. This can help you make a few important decisions about your HVAC system and home comfort—in particular, answer the big question: “Is my AC good for another year, or should I schedule a replacement?”
A piece of machinery that’s covered with a layer of grime and dirt won’t run as well as when it’s clean. That’s just a basic fact. When it comes to your air conditioning system, a layer of dirt and grime almost anywhere on it is bad news. For example, dust along the indoor evaporator coils can quickly cause the AC to lose energy efficiency and ice to develop along the coils.
The indoor fan for your central air conditioning system is not only how the AC sends cooled air around the house. It’s also how the AC moves warm air brought from the living spaces across the evaporator coils to cool it down. Without a working fan, you have no cool air and no way to deliver any air to the rooms.
The second half of summer is when you are more likely to encounter a malfunction with your air conditioning system. This makes sense, as the AC has been hard at work for at least a few months, and wear on the system can cause small problems to start to worsen. (Another reminder about why spring air conditioning maintenance is so vital.)
During stressful times, you don’t want to have yet another major problem dropped into your schedule. A broken air conditioning system counts for most people as a “major problem” during the summer, and if you have an air conditioner that isn’t providing the level of comfort your household requires, you will probably need to call us for 
You’re probably not an expert at the technology of air conditioning systems. We don’t expect you to be—it’s a large field and it takes years of training to handle the extensive work involved in AC repair, installation, and other service work. We understand if you look at the stats on an air conditioner and feel a little bewildered. For example, what does a “5 Ton 15 SEER/11 EER R-410A refrigerant unit with a scroll compressor” mean?
