{"id":438,"date":"2018-08-27T11:00:24","date_gmt":"2018-08-27T15:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.accomfort.us\/blog\/?p=438"},"modified":"2018-08-23T10:24:58","modified_gmt":"2018-08-23T14:24:58","slug":"should-ice-on-air-conditioning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.accomfort.us\/blog\/air-conditioning-service\/should-ice-on-air-conditioning\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cUh, Should There Be Ice on My Air Conditioning?\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"frozen-ac\"No, there should not. Call us for air conditioning repairs in Katy, TX!<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2026<\/p>\n

Oh, you\u2019re still here? I hope you already called us\u2014we should be there soon to fix what\u2019s wrong with your air conditioner. We may even save you from having to replace it prematurely.<\/p>\n

But since we\u2019ve got you here, we can entertain you as you wait with an explanation of why ice on the AC is a Bad Thing.<\/p>\n

Ice may seem<\/em> normal for a cooling system\u2014but it\u2019s not<\/h3>\n

We\u2019re glad you called us to investigate the ice on your air conditioner, because too often homeowners see frost on the coils of a cooling system and shrug it off. This does make some sense: the air coming from an AC is cold, ice is cold, so why shouldn\u2019t one be connected to the other?<\/p>\n

However, a central air conditioning system doesn\u2019t use ice to lower the temperature of the air, which is a process called evaporative cooling<\/em>. There are cooling systems called evaporative coolers<\/em> (we install and service them) that use this process, but they contain water rather than ice.<\/p>\n

What a standard central AC does to cool down a house is a different process, heat exchange<\/em>. This means removing heat from one location and releasing it in another. A special chemical refrigerant is used as the heat transfer medium. It circulates through two sets of coils, one indoors and one outdoors, to absorb heat from the first location and then exhaust it in the other. When heat is removed from your indoor air, the air feels cooler.<\/p>\n

Why ice may appear anyway<\/h3>\n

The reason ice may start to form along the indoor coil\u2014and that\u2019s the spot you\u2019re most likely to see ice formation\u2014is because something is wrong with the heat exchange process. The indoor coil isn\u2019t absorbing enough heat to warm the refrigerant inside it. When this happens, the refrigerant stays below freezing, and the moisture along the coil turns to ice. The ice further lowers heat absorption, creating more ice. This continues until the whole coil is frozen over and there\u2019s no heat exchange going on, and therefore no indoor coolin.<\/p>\n

There are different reasons why the refrigerant in the coil isn\u2019t absorbing enough heat to warm it.<\/p>\n