Does the air coming out of your vent feel weak?
If so, check another vent to see if you still feel low airflow.
If you just feel low airflow in the 1 vent, you may have low airflow because of 1 or more of these 3 reasons:
If 2 or more of your vents have low airflow, it’s likely caused by 1 of these 5 air conditioner problems:
Many homes have flex ducts, which are very flexible wire tubes covered in plastic. However, because they’re so flexible, they can easily be crushed or smashed. A crushed flex duct will restrict airflow to a particular room or region of your home.
Over time, metal sheet ductwork and flex ducts can accidentally become disconnected or develop leaks. In fact, according to Energy Star, a typical house loses about 20–30% of the air that moves through the duct system due to leaks and poorly connected ducts.
Solution: Contact a professional to inspect your home’s ductwork for leaks and proper connection.
Dampers are valves in your duct system that block or restrict airflow to a particular room. If they mistakenly get closed, they will restrict airflow to a room or particular vent.
Solution: If you have electronic dampers (you’ll see controls near your indoor unit), make sure they’re open and then see if that fixes the problem.
Still have weak airflow or can’t find your dampers? Contact an air conditioning expert to make sure your dampers are open. A Denver area HVAC expert can inspect your ducts and provide the best options based on budget and your home's needs.
If your filter looks like the one on the right, it's dirty and you should change it
Believe it or not, something as simple as a dirty filter could be what’s causing your air conditioner not to blow hard. Without getting too detailed, a dirty air filter makes it hard for air to enter your AC system, which means you’ll be feeling low airflow.
Clogged or dirty air filters can restrict airflow and reduce your AC system's efficiency. Locate the air filters in your system and inspect them. If they're dirty or clogged, replace them with new ones.
Solution: Check your air filter. If it’s dirty, replace it.
A frozen evaporator coil.
Your air conditioner has a component called an evaporator coil, which is the part that cools your air. If it gets too cold, moisture from your home’s air can freeze and form ice on the evaporator coil. This ice limits the flow of air into your home.
In addition to low airflow, you’ll know you have a frozen evaporator coil if you notice pools of water by your indoor unit.
Most of the time, a frozen evaporator is caused by 1 of these 2 issues:
Read our article “Why Is Ice Building on My A/C Unit’s Pipes?” for more information.
Solution: First, turn off your AC so the ice can melt. Then, follow these steps:
If you do those 2 steps and your AC still freezes over, call a professional to check your refrigerant levels and take a look at your blower.
Your home’s air conditioning system depends on many interconnected ducts that look like a maze. If part of your ductwork is leaky, disconnected or bent, you could experience low airflow at multiple vents.
A dirty blower, above, can decrease the amount of air that comes through your AC vents.
Your air conditioning system relies on a blower to pull in air from your home, run it over the evaporator coil, then push it back into your home as cold air.
If something’s not working right with your blower, you’ll feel low airflow. Some common blower issues that reduce airflow include:
Solution: Contact an AC expert to inspect the blower and get it to run properly again.
Your return vents should be unobstructed.
Take a look at your return vent (the big one that sucks in the air from your home). Is it closed, or is anything blocking it? If so, that could explain why your AC isn’t blowing hard.
Additionally, if your return vents were sized too small for your home’s air circulation needs, that would also create low airflow.
It's also a good idea to check your air vent cover and registers. Ensure that all vents and registers throughout your home are open and unobstructed. Sometimes furniture or objects can accidentally block the airflow. Make sure there are no curtains, rugs, or other items impeding the airflow from the vents.
If your air conditioner is having issues of any kind, give us a call. We serve the Denver metro area and beyond, from Fort Collins and Longmont to Castle Rock and have been providing expert air conditioning repair to the area since 1998.
For your convenience, you can request an appointment in one of two ways:
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