This year before we started using the air conditioning for the summer, I totally spaced out and forgot to clean out around the exterior A/C unit.
Usually I make that a top priority every year whenever I start getting ready for the summer.
Whenever the weather starts heating up outside, I start pulling out all of the summer stuff like the pool floats, the shorts and tank tops, the flip flops, and the other outdoor stuff that our family likes to use during the summertime. During that time, I normally make it a point to check the exterior air conditioning unit to make sure that there isn’t anything growing around it or over the top of it. Sometimes vines or weeds or branches or other debris can get near the vented cover of the A/C unit and if that happens, it can really affect the air conditioning inside of the house. I once heard about this crazy freak accident where a raccoon somehow got sucked into the air conditioning unit when it turned on for the first time after a long winter. It killed the poor raccoon and it also killed the air conditioning system. I never want anything awful like that to happen to me and so I always make it a point to check the exterior A/C unit. However, this year, I just got too busy and it totally slipped my mind. I turned the air conditioning on without checking it first and a bunch of long grasses and weeds got pulled down into the fan! It didn’t tear it up completely, but the A/C didn’t work right at first. Luckily, I figured out what the problem was early on.