50% of the success of an air conditioner installation depends on the quality and maintenance of AC. It is the most time-consuming process which includes planning, buying materials, and preparing tools for further air conditioner installation.
When you choose an air conditioner in a store, it is not enough just to point to an area of a required room and get a suitable variant. If they offer you an air conditioner of a certain capacity without any questions, you should think about looking at air conditioners in some other place.
These are the questions you should be interested in if you are planning a proper air conditioner installation:
- The area of the room. This is important, but you also need to know “what kind of room it is.” A bedroom, a living room, and a kitchen can be of the same size, but the heat sources are completely different, and this greatly affects the work of the air conditioner. If in the bedroom the only source of heat is you, your couple, and maybe a dog, then in the living room there is a TV set and guests, and in the kitchen – refrigerator, cooking surface, electric kettle, and other appliances.
- The presence of windows, blinds on them, and output on the sunny side. Direct sunlight on the air conditioner also affects its work. The optimal arrangement of the air conditioner is to place the air conditioner perpendicular to the window.
- Location of the air conditioner about comfort zones. It is important to consider the possibility of placing the air conditioner not near rest areas: bed, sofa, dining table. The streams of cold air will create not a comfortable pastime, and at all can promote colds.
What is the manifestation of poor-quality installation of the air conditioner?
If the installation is carried out in two stages, then in the first stage it will be impossible to install the indoor unit because of wrong dimensions, for example, if such facts as lowering of the ceiling during repair are not taken into account. Outdoor communications are often left without proper insulation, which leads to their freezing in the winter and rapid failure.
At fracture of pipes, bad quality of their connection, and exceeding of the maximum allowed length of freon line, the productivity of a conditioner can fall catastrophically. And, of course, it is necessary to take into consideration the consequences of a bad quality installation. It is a disturbance of interior decoration, and loss of all aesthetics in installation and functionality of the air-conditioning device.
How to mount correctly the outside block of the conditioner
Let’s see what is the right installation of the outside unit of the air conditioner. It is important to install the outdoor unit of the system in places (the external part of the building) where there is access to the cooling radiator and direct flow of fresh air. In some cases, the installation of the outdoor unit of split systems is performed in the glazed balconies. Then it is important to make sure that there is a window just opposite the block, through which there will be an unobstructed, natural airflow during the operation of equipment.
Otherwise, if there will not be circulation and supply of fresh air, the outside block of the air conditioner will overheat because there will not be a necessary cooling of the compressor. Of course, in modern air-conditioners, whether it is inverter or non-inverter ones, temperature sensors are often installed which, if the system overheats, give a command for an automatic shutdown until t°C falls to the admissible norm, in other words until the unit cools down. Here is an example of an improperly installed outdoor air conditioner unit:
If it is hot outside, for example, 30°C and higher, the air conditioner will work for 5 minutes on average, and for the next 30-40 minutes it will cool down in the switched-off state. What is worse, if the above-mentioned temperature sensor is absent or broken, the block will overheat and will fail, and the repair will not be cheaper than buying a new conditioner.
Conclusion
The installation of the air conditioner also should include further AC repair service, which includes refilling of freon, cleaning, repairs, etc. The service technician should have free access to the valves located on the side of the outdoor unit. They are usually under a protective plastic cover. Otherwise, if this access is blocked, due to improper installation, it will be necessary to call in the services of an industrial climber, which will significantly affect the repair/service cost upwards.
