Tips to take care of your air-cons

Air conditioners have become an essential ingredient in making our lives truly modern. Today it is cool, both literally and metaphorically speaking, to have a fully air-conditioned home.

Room air conditioners come in split, window, floor and cassette types with the first being the most popular here.

Between the split and window types, the former takes the cake and eats it too in the aesthetic and practicality departments as there is no need to break a hole in your wall and it is harder for your regular cat burglar to steal.

With its high power consumption compared to electric fans, air conditioners have only been embraced by about 20 percent of Indonesian households.

Nonetheless, consumers can make receiving electrical bills less traumatic by adhering to simple self-maintenance rules and energy-saving techniques:

1. To prevent energy wastage, clean the indoor air filters every three months (more frequently if the area is dusty) and change the air purifier if dirty. Some units come with a filter check light to gently remind us to do so.

2. If the unit's performance drops, check its refrigerant level.

3. The bigger the better clichi doesn't apply to air conditioners as a unit with a greater cooling capacity than required in relation to the size of the room will shut off and start up more frequently, thus expending more energy. (Capacity of A/C needed for a room not more than three meters high = Length of room x Width of room x 500 Btu)

4. Operate the unit on "recirculate" rather than "outside air".

5. Activate the sleep mode at night.

6. Although they cost more, for greater cost effectiveness in the long run, select units that have a higher Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER) rating. The EER compares the British Thermal Units per hour (Btu/hr) output to the watts of electricity the unit uses.

7. Use the fan-only switch that enables the fan while disabling the refrigeration of the air - perfect for those cold, rainy nights.

8. Look for units with an automatic delay fan switch that turns off the fan a few minutes after the compressor turns off.

9. If the air conditioner is to be mounted at end of a long room, get a unit with a power thrust/super thrust fan control that can send air farther into the room.

10. Check out energy-saving compressors.

Jamuna Nair