Many people routinely take their air conditioning units for granted. It’s why they often allow it go through long periods of neglect without carrying out some maintenance procedures on it. Luckily, most air conditioning units are built to be sturdy and highly resilient –who knows, maybe if they were more fragile, people would pay more attention to them.

Anyways, if you own an air conditioning unit, you should know that it’s possible that you are unwittingly doing some things that are compromising your AC unit’s efficiency and damaging some of its components.

Now, because ACs are hardy, they can take some beating, but you should know that they can only take so much before they break down and stop working altogether. The following are some of the most common ways people damage their ACs.

Not Servicing It Frequently

Do you drive a vehicle? If yes, how many times do you service it a year? Most vehicle owners endeavor to service their cars once every quarter at the very least.

If you do this for something that you use for an average of 4 hours every day, doesn’t it make sense that you should do the same for something you use for at least 8 hours a day?

You need to have a professional HVAC expert, such as those at Bob Heinmiller AC, to carry out a routine AC maintenance at least once a year. The optimum number of times is actually twice –right before summer when it is heavily used and during the fall or before winter- a year.

But if that’s too much, make sure to have it done once. Doing this keeps your AC working optimally for years and most importantly saves you a lot of money on your electricity bills.

Leaving the Windows and Doors Open When the AC is On

Again, you wouldn’t do this in your vehicle, so we wonder why some people do this. Once your AC comes on, you need to block all means of cold air escape.

This means that when the AC is on, all doors, windows, and crevices should be closed or blocked for maximum efficiency.

Leaving those open puts a lot of strain on the AC as it has to work harder to cool the air inside the house. Therefore, this can result in an early breakdown of the unit as well as high energy bills.

Rarely Cleaning the Air Filter

Your air filter serves to prevent the inflow of dust as well as improve your ACs efficiency. If your air filter is clogged or dirty, you’ll be inhaling lots of dust in the home.

Leaving your AC’s filter uncleansed is bound to affect your health and that of your kids if they have dust allergies. So, if you want to prevent any dust allergies, you should clean this once every three months at the very least.

Leaving the AC On When People Aren’t Around

We understand that most people do this particularly during the summer to ensure that the house is cool as soon as they step in. Well, this means that your AC will run for 24 hours non-stop, all day every day.

This is bound to put tremendous strain on your AC and results in huge energy bills. Instead, have your AC turned off when you’re going out and turn it back on when you get in. ACs usually need no more than 2-3 minutes to start cooling the house. Surely, you can wait for 2-3 minutes, can’t you?

Now, you can ignore these things and pay a small fortune to buy a new one or repair the broken one. But as far as we’re concerned, that expense will not be needed if you take the hints and avoid the aforementioned issues.

The writer of this article, Oscar King, is a homeowner and freelance writer who actively writes articles related to maintenancing your home in a cost effective way. If you would like to learn more about Oscar, you can check out his Google+ profile.