Aside from a gentle clicking sound every time your unit turns on or off, your air conditioner should remain mostly silent. Any kind of sounds or smells that emanate from your vents should be a cause for alarm and necessitate a call to your local HVAC company to schedule AC repairs.
Listen out for the four sounds that are described below. If you hear any of them, schedule an AC repair service before they turn into major issues.
Clicking
As mentioned above, a clicking sound indicates that your system is turning on or off. A continual clicking, however, can indicate that your system is trying to cycle on but is unable to do so. While the clicking sound may be annoying, it needs to be taken care of before the motor fails completely. Usually, this can be solved by simply reattaching the energy source, but there may be another problem that the HVAC technician can identify instead.
Rattling
If your air vent sounds like it's holding a can of BBs, you're probably not too far off. Every once in a while, a bolt or a piece of metal can get broken off of your AC system and rattle around inside your ductwork every time the air kicks up. While this may sound simple, the dangers of a loose part or constant metal-on-metal can result in premature failure of your system, especially if it's coming from inside the AC unit itself. An AC repair service will not only be able to reattach what was broken, but also repair any kind of damage that's been done in the meantime.
Whining
Whining sounds are never fun, but if you hear a whining sound coming from your air conditioning system, it's most likely the fan belt that is about to give way. As the motor for your fan turns, the belt will wear down over time and eventually snap, which will cause your air conditioner to stop working completely. The hard part with this job is not repairing the belt but accessing the unit itself, so you'll need a professional to replace this for you. Fortunately, once they get inside, it's a relatively simple AC repair.
Hissing
Do you know that sound that a balloon makes when it slowly letting out here? If you hear it coming from your air vents, the same thing is taking place. Either there is a hole inside the walls of your ductwork or one of your connection points isn't very secure and the air is escaping through the gap. Once the technician finds it, patching it can be relatively simple, unless there are multiple holes that need to be taken care of. While it may not be cheap, it's a lot less expensive than the years of lost energy that you're paying every month in your utility bills.
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