If you’re like most people, a simple stroll into Lowe’s, Home Depot, or your local hardware store means coming across products you might never have thought you needed- like air conditioner covers. Many people in the HVAC community debate the need for covers, so we thought we’d list the pros and cons so you can decide what’s best for you.
The benefits of covering an air conditioner include:
Keeping the air conditioner coils a little cleaner, so it will run more efficiently when it’s turned on again.
Especially at the shore, where salt air can be corrosive to a/c units, keeping the coils a little more protected from storms and exposure to salt air is certainly a factor to weigh in the decision.
Covers prevent yard waste, sticks, leaves and other things from blowing into your unit and causing damage.
Covers can prevent water from resting directly on coils and freezing, which could be damaging, especially if there are a lot of freeze-thaw cycles over the Winter.
The potential reasons to not cover a unit include:
Covering a unit with a plastic cover will trap moisture inside, creating a high humidity environment, by creating a bit of a “greenhouse” effect for your unit when the sun beats down on the cover. The electrical components, and circuit boards hate this sort of environment, and especially at the shore, this might just accelerate corrosion by trapping salt air and then heating it up. To address that look for a cover that “breathes” like canvas or has a liner on the inside to absorb some moisture and minimize the collection and dripping of water.
Most manufacturers don’t specifically recommend covering the outside unit.
Search for ac cover online or ac cover amazon
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