Watkins Heating & Cooling Blog Air conditioners & Lightning strikes Spring in the Miami Valley always brings electrical storms. Lightning from these storms commonly causes damaging power surges in our homes. Power surges can harm nearly any electrical device in your home, and we frequently find air conditioners ruined during lightning storms. Damage from surges can range from blown fuses and burnt capacitors to fried compressors and burnt wires. Many customers want us to find conclusive proof that lightning caused the damage. Most insurance policies will cover the damage if a power surge can be proven. Sometimes the best evidence of a lightning strike is other damaged electronics. Stereos, TVs, and other electronics seem to be more sensitive to power surges than your air conditioner. So, if you find that the day after a thunder storm, both your air conditioner and your DVD player are out, your home has likely been hit with a power surge. A weak surge can damage an air conditioner's capacitor (inexpensive) which, if not replaced, will take out the compressor (very expensive) week or months later.

For this reason, it's important to have a tech check your HVAC system if you have any other damaged devices and suspect a power surge. What can you do to prevent a/c compressor damage? Names For Cat With MustacheTurn off your air conditioner at the thermostat during a lightning storm. Fox 2 21 Day Weight Loss ChallengeYour air conditioner is only susceptible to power surges when the unit is operating. Corner Baths For Sale In South AfricaOf course a direct lightning strike can still turn your a/c into a pile of smoking scrap metal, but direct strikes are very rare. In the Cincinnati area, Duke Energy offers Strike-Stop, a whole-house surge protector to protect your belongings from most power surges. They also offer inexpensive insurance if the surge is too much for Strike-Stop to handle.

As always, feel free to contact us if you have more questions or need a service technician.How Lightning Strikes Affect Your Air Conditioner No matter the time of year, a thunderstorm can be unnerving for pets, children, and those who fear the loud boom of thunder and the bright flash of lightning. Even more frightening is the idea that a nearby lightning strike can affect your home’s electrical wiring, including your HVAC unit. Arkansas has 100 days of precipitation a year on average, which means it’s highly likely that a nearby lightning strike during a thunderstorm can damage electrical and plumbing fixtures. The initial lightning strike isn’t generally what damages HVAC units right away—it’s the power surges following an outage that can cause air conditioners to receive damage in a storm. A power surge is a spike in voltage and varies in both duration and magnitude. While most homes use 120-volt, 60 Hz, single phase electric power, a power surge spikes the voltage to 169 volts, causing damage to appliances and electronics that rely on that power to work.

When lightning strikes damage an air conditioning unit, the effect may not be immediately apparent. Over the course of a few months following a nearby lightning strike, you might notice your air conditioner doesn’t work as well. Here are a few problems with your air conditioning to watch for following a lightning strike: Damaged capacitor: The most common air conditioning part to give way following a power surge, a damaged capacitor can lead to further problems, including compressor failure. Blown fuses: If the voltage has damaged your air conditioner, you are more likely to encounter an air conditioning system which trips a breaker or blows the fuse due to damaged electrical lines. Burned wires: If a power surge damages electrical wires within the air conditioner or within your home, your air conditioner might not work. Damaged compressor: One of the most expensive parts to fix in an air conditioning unit, a damaged compressor may not be noticeable right away.

It can take weeks or months for an air conditioning unit to finally fail and indicate that the compressor was damaged. It’s important to have your HVAC unit inspected following a lightning strike to avoid more expensive replacements down the road. How do you prevent damage to air conditioners following a lightning strike? For starters, it’s not possible to entirely prevent electrical damage from lightning strikes. Since we can’t predict when or where lightning can strike, the best you can hope for is little to no damage to your home if the worst happens. If a direct lightning strike damages your air conditioner, for example, there would have been little you could have done to stop it. You can, however, take steps when a thunderstorm is predicted to prevent harm from power surges. First, it’s important to use outlet surge suppressors between appliances and the electrical outlet. This minimizes the damage left behind by power surges and can protect your devices from the effects of a surge.

Second, you might consider panel-mounted surge protection to reduce the damage to your home’s electric gateway. Surge protection for your entire home is a good investment to save wiring and appliances from the damage a lightning strike can cause. Finally, to prevent damage to your air conditioning unit, turn off the air conditioner at the thermostat during a lightning storm. If power is not running to the unit when the lightning hits nearby, it’s less likely that there will be serious damage than if the unit was turned on. Don’t wait until it’s too late to have your air conditioning unit inspected following a lightning strike. Call one of the professional HVAC technicians at B.R. McGinty at 501-847-6800 today to schedule an appointment.Are you a bit hot under the collar? If you had a power outage during one of Arizona’s monstrous monsoons, the central AC may not have come back on. So what do you do? Follow these 5 steps to restart your AC safely and get your comfort back.

Go to your thermostat and set it to “off.”  This will stop your thermostat from calling your AC for cooling so you can reset the circuit breaker. Most likely, a power surge from the storm overloaded the AC’s circuit, causing the circuit breaker to “trip.”  So you’ll need to reset it. The circuit breaker box (a grey metalic box) is usually located in these areas: Open the circuit breaker box and find the circuit that has an air conditioner/HVAC label next to it. It’s OK if there’s no label. Just look for a switch that is “tripped,” meaning that’s it’s moved to the neutral position. To reset the circuit breaker,  turn it to the “off” position (right), then the “on” position (left) Your AC needs some time to reset its internal circuit breaker. Drink a cold drink. Take a swim (probably not during the monsoon, though). Do whatever you need to do to stay cool. Head back to your thermostat, set it to cool and make sure the temperature setting is at least 5 degrees below the room temperature.