When manufacturers make air conditioners, they know that these pieces of equipment will spend their entire lives outside, exposed to the elements. They are designed to be sturdy. However, you can't escape the fact that they require regular maintenance, but there is something simple you can do to help protect your investment: Cover your air conditioner during the winter. Here's why...

The evaporator coil in your air conditioner consists of lots of metal folded tightly on itself to create as much surface area for air to pass over as possible. Refrigerant flows through this coil to make it cold and unfiltered, outside air passes over it to be cooled off before being blown into your house. This unfiltered, outside air contains dirt, dust, seeds, bugs, grass clippings, grease, pollution and bacteria that form an insulating barrier on the coil. Your air conditioning system is perfectly balanced with refrigerant to allow you the highest efficiency possible. Anything that effects that balance, such as a layer of muck on your coil, effects your system's efficiency translating into higher operating costs as well as unnecessary wear and tear on your system.

Even when your air conditioner is off and isn't actively pulling dirty, outside air over your coil, the coil is still just sitting there exposed to everything. One of the best things you can do for your air conditioner is simply to cover the thing during the winter. This one action will prevent months of buildup, helping to keep your system healthy and make your routine maintenance that much more effective.

The weather has been gorgeous! Why can I not stop thinking about heating? We are experiencing one of the "warmest" Octobers on record since they started recording the weather more than a hundred years ago. "Warm" for October translates into beautiful sunny days. The only thing that would make it better would be if we could get some rain.

Only a guy in the heating business would be think about heat right now, and that's exactly what I'm doing. I know that your heating system has been lying dormant all summer and this means that the electrical components of your system will have to turn on from a dead stop and that all types of gunk and grime has been building up on the latent moving parts of your heating system.

This is why most heating system failures occur the first or second time your system comes on. When you first notice it getting chilly in the house and switch that thermostat over to heat, those grime covered parts are going to have to grind into action. That's a really great way to kill your heat. It's kind of like playing football without properly warming up first. You set yourself up for all kinds of unnecessary injuries.

Why do I worry about things like this? Because I'm in the heating business. I want you to let me send one of my technicians to your house now, before you need heat, to make sure that everything will work. This will make me happy in two ways. I'll get the opportunity to take care of you and I won't have to try to take care of you during the first cold snap when everybody and their brother who didn't plan ahead for the heating season turns that old system on and realizes they are in trouble.