My outside air conditioning unit needs a Karen Silkwood shower

Unicorn on the cob — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 08:56:31 -0800

Help me de-gunk my outside air conditioner. Last year, I had a great guy replace my air conditioning unit in my five-year-old house. Being not the best homeowner in the world, I had no idea there was a vast series of weekly and monthly steps to be done to keep things nice (with the house in general), which led to me spending three grand putting in a whole new unit.

The guy told me that my outside air unit needs to be cleaned regularly to keep debris (leaves, bug bodies, crap in general) out of the blades surrounding the fan. He said the occasional high-pressure spray down with an outside garden hose would do, and that's what I've been doing. But he also mentioned that every 5 years or so, the blades in the vents would get so clogged I should do an "enzyme clean." He specifically said it was for the blades on the outside unit, NOT a duct cleaning or coil cleaning. Well, I tried calling the guy this summer and his number is disconnected, and googled "enzyme clean" and all I get is services for cleaning air ducts.

Does anyone have any experience with this? I looked at my unit yesterday and it looks pretty gunked up and I would love for it to be running as efficiently, cleanly and coolly as possible now that the 100+ degree days have started. Ideally, I would love to just do it myself, if that were possible, and he mentioned you could buy the product yourself and do it without professional help or hire an HVAC person to come and do the cleaning for you... but now I don't know who to call or what to ask for. If it helps, I'm in Dallas.

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My outside air conditioning unit needs a Karen Silkwood shower