I live in a very old farmhouse out in far NW Florida. The house is far too old to have central air/heat (although there's plenty of room in the attic area to install one, but our cheapskate landlady would never do that!) Anyway, I've installed window units in all the rooms we use. I have a 14KBTU which came with the house in the den, a 5KBTU unit in each of the kid's rooms, an 8KBTU in our bedroom, and a 12K unit in my office/computer room/studio/mancave. All but one of these units I bought for pennies on the dollar at a pawn shop. All but the new one had some portion of the condenser fins flattened out against the plumbing. For some reason, I never thought of asking until fairly recently if there was a tool one could use to straighten out these fins to get the units back up to peak efficiency. Well, there is such a tool, and I got one and BOY what a difference it makes to have the fins fixed! That 12K unit in my office used to sound like an M1A1 Abrahms tank and barely controlled the heat in the office, but now that I've straightened the fins out, I can get this room down to refrigerator level if I were inclined to...and the rig runs a good 30% quieter than it did. In all the units, the cool (compressor ON) cycles are of much shorter duration and more widely spaced than before which of course translates into much less $$ for the cooling job we ask of them.

I got my fin comb from Home Depot for about 7 bucks. Absolutely recommended addition to every tool box!

http://www.filterace.com/images/T300.jpg

Wow, good to know. Thanks!

...and it pays for itself.

Yep, the unit will also last a lot longer now that you have taken a considerable load off of the compressor. The working pressures and heat are drastically reduced.

I've been wondering if something like that was available. THANKS!!!!

A good point to remember, if you live in an area prone to freezing rain and you have a central A/C- heat pump - with an open top, like Carrier, York etc. and the power goes out, shut it off. If you don't, when the power comes back and the fan starts it will fling all the ice that has built up on the blades into the coils - not good. If you have a Trane like our 1400XL with the lid you need not worry.

A good point to remember, if you live in an area prone to freezing rain and you have a central A/C- heat pump - with an open top, like Carrier, York etc. and the power goes out, shut it off. If you don't, when the power comes back and the fan starts it will fling all the ice that has built up on the blades into the coils - not good. If you have a Trane like our 1400XL with the lid you need not worry.

You can make a "redneck cover" with a trashcan lid and a hinge to go over the fan opening. Attach a string so it won't go over too far when the unit turns on. Just be careful when attaching the hinge, don't want to poke a hole in the condenser coil.:eek:

I think you can buy the kits at some a/c supply houses as well, for those who live in deed restricted communities.