Cleaning an exterior Air Conditioning unit
I was sick today, having come down with a cold that ripped through everyone else in the house before me. I couldn't sleep all day though so rather than waste the time watching The Price is Right reruns, it was as good a day as any to deal with my AC.
I haven't cleaned it since we moved in almost 3 years ago, and I don't think the prior owner had done it in a while either, so it was pretty gunked up and the AC wasn't working too well as a result. We are basically done with summer temps now, but I wanted to get this off my To Do list prior to winter and next summer.
This was the state of the unit when I opted to clean it. Definitely has a lot of grime built up on it, though the pictures don't fully display its sorry state.
I bought some generic foaming AC cleaner for the job as I read that it breaks down the gunk on the fins very well. Then it was just a matter of opening up the top, lifting out the fins and motor, and giving me a bit of space to spray.
I didn't get a shot of the foam, but it did expand pretty impressively and you could see it just destroying the buildup of grime.
Once I had sprayed it a few times, I let it sit for about 20 min and then came back to hose it off. This is a self-rinsing solution but I wanted to rinse it anyhow just to be sure I wasn't leaving anything behind in case the condensation the unit creates isn't enough to fully clean it.
The result, which again isn't as well displayed through the photos, was an amazingly clean AC. It was noticeably cooler in here the next day, which was wonderful.
Looks like the cleaner might be an effective weedkiller as well, judging by the sorry state of that dandelion. No making dandy tea from that one ! 😁
I need to dig up all those rocks and replace the weed barrier in the WORST way. The folks who owned this place before us had definitely not re-done the barrier in the last like 7 years, so everywhere that I have rocks is a prime place for weeds right now. I wasn't healthy enough last year or the year before to get down and do it, but after the surgery early this year I've been doing great so it's a very high task on next year's spring list.