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When we went through our home inspection here, someone mentioned something about covering the air conditioner during the winter. I probably didn't pay much attention to that, but my wife did, so when fall came, she reminded me to cover it. I put a plastic tarp over it, secured it with some bungee cords, and that was that.

I happened to be talking with my neighbor Norm yesterday, and for some reason the conversation turned to that subject, and he said that he had read you should never cover them because it just traps moisture. Hmmm, I thought: that makes a lot of sense.

So I decided to research it in Google. That gives you an awful lot of ads for people selling air conditioning covers, but it also gives you a few links to people talking about the subject. The first one I looked at was http://www.friedrich.com/faq/question20.asp, which says:

Everything in the rear of the air conditioner is sealed so snow and rain cannot harm the air conditioner. FRIEDRICH Air Conditioning does not make covers for air conditioners because of the mold and mildew problem.

Well, that seems rather definite. I then looked at http://www.misterfix-it.com/solutions/air.htm#cac, which echoed the same thing:

These units, built to resist the weather, generally do not need a cover. In fact, covers can cause problems because they trap moisture and create an inviting winter home for small animals.

It isn't looking good for covers, is it? I sure am not going to do that again!

But then I found this at http://www.greatpossibilities.com/articles/publish/ac.shtml:

Dirt, dust, seeds, bugs, foliage, grease, corrosion, pollution, and even bacteria and other microorganisms can act as an insulating barrier. Anything that touches the coil reduces the heat transfer of unwanted heat from the refrigerant to the outside air.

..

This involves opening the system, having the refrigerant and oil removed, and filter dryers installed to clean up the system of moisture and acid that will be introduced from opening the system and left from the failure. This is a very costly procedure and many systems at this point are not worth fixing.

..

This is why it is recommended that you keep the coil clean with an air conditioning cover during the off season.

Ooops - "costly procedure" - I don't like the sound of that.

Then I remembered how that conversation got started. You see, we don't use our air conditioner, and I must have mentioned that to Norm. I know, that's weird, how can we stand it, it's been so terribly hot, I know, I know. But we just never have liked it; we prefer to use fans, and we are used to it. Maybe if it got really, really hot we might someday turn it on, but probably not. That's just us: we don't use A/C in the house. In the car, yes. But not in the house.

I did turn it on once this season just to see that it worked, but if it hadn't, we probably wouldn't fix it. So why am I worried about covering the darn thing? The heck with it.

So what should you do? Darned if I know. I think I'd lean toward the "no cover" option myself, but what do I know? Not much, so I'll just do whatever my wife tells me. Cover it up? Sure thing. Don't cover it? No problem. We don't use it anyway, so there doesn't seem to be much downside either way.. I'm glad I was able to be of help and clear this matter up once and for all.

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