The importance of keeping your Air-Con unit clean

  • Barrowford MOT Centre

With all the hype of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) being contained, we take a look at how the virus, if indeed proved to be airborne, could be harnessed and transmitted through your air conditioning unit in your car and how we can avoid or at least prevent this happening.

The key is maintenance, and one of the most important aspects of this is cleaning. Your car’s air-conditioner must be clean so it stays in good working order so that it can continue to perform its function of keeping us cool in our cars.

But how often should this procedure be performed? That all depends on how often you use your car and how well your air-conditioner works.

Many auto air-conditioner technicians will tell you to have it done at regular periodic intervals. They would probably advise every two years.

For a car that’s used daily:

  1. Have the condenser sprayed with high-pressure water at least once every couple of months. It’s a really easy process. The next time you’re at a car wash, ask them to blast the condenser with high-pressure water to clear it out. The condenser is usually mounted in front of the radiator, behind the grille, at the front of the car. This will push out the dust, leaves, and debris and allow it to perform its function better.
  2. Change your cabin filter at least every year. If you can do it yourself, take the cabin filter out and clean it out at least every six months. This will help keep dust and debris from further contaminating your evaporator.

Even if you regularly clean and replace the cabin filter, the evaporator will inevitably develop mould and mildew because of the condensation that inevitably develops. Equally, this is how virus’ can be caught, breed and be spread through the air conditioning unit in your car. The dark, enclosed environment in the evaporator casing under the dashboard, combined with the condensate, is a perfect place for mould and mildew to grow.

How to keep it clean

A professional job will pull down the evaporator and the condenser to clean them out. And this you have to make sure they do; sometimes, a lazy shop will just pull down the evaporator and not the condenser. You must make sure that they pull down both those parts to clean them properly. This is a time-consuming process. Assuming you’ve been diligent and you’ve followed regular cleaning, on a brand-new car that’s used as a daily driver, we advise to have this professional cleaning done after four or five years from new and then every three years thereafter. At this time, you should also ask for a thorough check on the condition of the compressor.

The foregoing is only advice on regular maintenance. It is by no means foolproof, as many other things can go wrong in the many parts of a car’s air-conditioning system. But cleaning the system up regularly will surely help in prolonging its effectiveness and keep you comfortable during your regular commutes.

Barrowford MOT provide an Air Con and Bacteria cleaning service and would be happy to take a look at this for you. Call us today on 01282 696351 to arrange a service.


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