Originally Posted by TanyaL

Talking about the electricity reminds me to share this with you. We had a service call on our air conditioner today. Here are the tips we were given to help our AC unit. Turn it completely off at least 30 minutes once or better, twice, a day, so that it can completely cool the motor down. (We're doing this around 7:00AM and 11:00pm) Clean those filters every 2 weeks! With the drought here in Texas the air is so filled with dust that the filters clog up within 2 weeks and then the AC runs hotter. Wash your compressor frequently with the water hose - every few days - the dust in the air is that bad! We also live on a dirt road. We had to tell the man to start looking for a good buy on a new but scratched and dented unit since he said that was the best buy on a furnace/AC unit. He had just bought a unit for himself like that. The furnace goes into a closet, the compressor sits outside - why would we care if both were scratched or dented and the price reduced? It's the reduced price we care about.Just hope he finds a unit before this old one of ours finally dies. It's 17 years old.