Why my AC is switching on automatically?

Are you having problems with your air conditioner? Is it turning on and off frequently? Is it not cooling as it should? An AC is a mechanical piece of equipment that should keep working flawlessly if all the components inside the AC keep doing what they are designed to do. However, like all mechanical devices, all these components have to suffer a lot of wear and tear which means after some time, a few or many of these components need to be replaced or repaired.

Sometimes, problems develop due to lack of regular servicing and maintenance or similar issues. In such cases, the components might need to be replaced much earlier than expected. If your air conditioner is having problems much earlier than expected, here is what you need to know about air-conditioners and how to fix some of the common problems.

One of the most common reasons your air conditioner keeps turning on and off is short cycling. Short cycling is a process where the cooling cycle or the refrigerant cycle in your air conditioner doesn’t get enough time to finish off properly. In short, it tends to end prematurely and shuts down your air conditioner. However, once the temperature in the room rises, the Ac turns on again in order to bring the temperature down as that is the settings that have been fed into the system.

Therefore, one of the first things you need to do is to make sure that your air conditioner isn’t short cycling. In order to ensure that, switch on your AC and keep it running for a few minutes and if it turns off and on again within a few minutes, it means there is a short cycling problem. That short cycling could be happening due to a number of reasons that we are going to discuss below.

However, it is recommended for you to use the services of a professional technician to fix the problem as specialised tools and proper training is required to diagnose the problem and fix it. Do not try to DIY it if you don’t know what you are doing. There are many sensitive components inside an air conditioner and all these components need to work in tandem in order to cool down the air to the desired temperature levels. Therefore, you should never try to fix a problem on your own without proper training and tools.

If you have just bought a new air conditioner and it is turning on and off frequently, it could be due to excessive capacity. For instance, if you have just installed a higher capacity air-conditioner in a small room, the air-conditioner will cool it down quickly. In fact, it could be so fast that the room temperature goes down to the pre-set levels even before the air-conditioner had a chance to complete its cooling cycle. However, when the thermostat senses that the temperature has reached the pre-set levels, it will shut down the air-conditioner and once the temperature rises, it will switch on the air-conditioner again. It will keep happening frequently and soon you will be dealing with a multitude of problems.

One of the biggest problems you are going to face when your air conditioner turns on and off frequently is higher than expected energy bills. You should know that your air conditioner or for that matter, all the other electrical appliances require a lot more power when they start and the power requirement then levels off once the equipment is up and running. If your air conditioner has to start frequently, it is going to use a lot more energy and that will lead to higher than expected energy bills. Nobody likes to pay more than they need to pay and if you are facing this problem, you would want to fix it as quickly as possible in order to avoid paying higher than expected energy bills.

Another reason for your air-conditioner turning on and off frequently could be a problem with the wiring or fuses or other electrical systems inside the air conditioning unit. If the wiring is faulty or there’s a problem with the capacitor, it could lead to a situation where your air conditioner has to turn on and off frequently. A problem with any of the other major components such as the compressor, evaporator coils, refrigerant lines, or other major components could also lead to this issue.

In short, this problem could be happening due to a number of reasons but the most important thing you need to know is that you should never make the mistake of ignoring this issue. One of the most common responses of people when it comes to a problem with air conditioner is to ignore it completely hoping that the problem would go away on its own. It will turn out to be a costly mistake as fixing the air-conditioner right in the beginning can usually save a lot of money as the problem doesn’t grow big enough to require major repairs.

If you keep ignoring a problem, it will turn to a much bigger problem and then, you might be forced to replace one of the major components of the air-conditioning system and that doesn’t come cheap. In fact, with the cost of the component and the hourly cost of installers and technicians, you might as well reach near the figure of buying a completely new unit. Therefore, never ignore a problem with your air conditioning system and make sure it is fixed as early as possible.

As far as using the services of a technician for fixing any problem with your air-conditioner is concerned, do not think that all technician are capable of fixing any kind of problem with any brand of the air-conditioning unit. Nothing could be further from the truth. While the basic principles behind air-conditioning remain the same in all the brands of air-conditioning systems but it does not mean that all those air-conditioning systems have the same design or use same parts or problems can be fixed with the same set of tools.

A technician needs to have specific experience with a particular brand in order to fix problems as every brand has some design quirks that might require specialised tools. Also, the replacement parts are mostly unique to each brand and not everyone carries all the replacement parts.

To conclude, don’t ignore any kind of problem with your air conditioner and get it fixed as quickly as possible. Also, make sure the technician you are planning to hire has proper experience with your brand of the air-conditioner.