Your home's air conditioning system is essential to keeping it comfortable during the summer. However, it's possible for the system to stop running unexpectedly or have a problem. You'll definitely need to know the following trips to troubleshoot a problem on your own.

Insufficient Cooling

Is the air conditioner running, but not doing a good job at cooling down your home? There could be several problems that have an easy fix that you should look at first. Start by checking the thermostat itself, since someone could have changed the settings in a way that is causing your home to not cool down. This includes increasing the temperature, turning on the fans only, or creating a weird schedule.

Another thing to look at is the air filter. If the filter has not been changed in a very long time, then all of that dust, dirt, and debris in the filter could restrict airflow and cause inefficient cooling as a result. Swap in a new air filter and see if that fixes the problem immediately.

It's also possible that you have a refrigerant leak and so the air conditioner is not able to extract the heat from the air. This can often be identified by a hissing sound in the refrigerant lines, but you may have to check it by spraying the lines down with a soapy solution. Bubbles will appear on the refrigerant lines if air or refrigerant is flowing out of the lines

Uneven Cooling

Just have uneven cooling where a specific room or part of the home is still hot? It is worth checking the dampers to see if the vents are actually allowing cold air into the room. There could be knobs along the ductwork close to the air handler that can be turned, which allows a damper to completely cut off airflow to a room. Simply turning the knob can get the air flowing again.

You should also check for obstructed air vents, especially if you recently moved furniture around. Allowing the air vents and the returns to be completely unobstructed can help with cool air flowing throughout the entire room.

Short Cycling

Is the air conditioner turning on and then shutting down quickly? This is an issue known as short cycling, and it's designed to shut down the air conditioner to prevent damage from happening. A common reason for short cycling is that the air conditioner is overheating. Give the grills of the outdoor condenser a good cleaning to see if that allows the hot air to escape. 

Reach out to an air conditioning repair contractor for more information.