If you've recently bought your first house, you may not be familiar with air conditioning maintenance and repair. If you've always lived in apartments, then someone else handled problems with your AC. Now that you own your own home, you need to keep up with maintenance on your AC and stay alert for signs the equipment needs to be repaired. Here are three signs your AC could be malfunctioning and it's time to call an air conditioning repair company.

1. The Air Handler Makes A Rattling Noise

The air handler and the furnace are in the same compartment. The blower works for both the furnace and the air conditioner. It's the fan that moves cool air through your house. If the fan gets a loose screw and wobbles, it will make a rattling noise, and that's an indication repairs are needed.

Other problems arise with the blower, too, such as a bad capacitor or motor that keeps it from working. The blower can also get so dirty that it won't spin very well. When the blower has issues, your AC outside may kick on, but the AC fan indoors won't run, or it will run but be weak. Problems with the blower keep your AC from cooling your home, so you'll need to call an air conditioning repair service to find the problem and fix it.

2. Your House Is Warm And The AC Is Running

If you can hear the air conditioner running and you feel air coming out of the registers but the air isn't as cool as you think it should be, the problem could be a loss of refrigerant. When your AC runs but your house isn't cool, the air conditioner will run longer each cycle as it tries to reach the thermostat setting.

This can drive up your power bill, so call an air conditioning repair technician to check the pressure in the refrigerant line to see if there is a leak that needs to be plugged so your home can cool down.

3. A Refrigerant Coil Is Frozen Over

Ice on your air conditioner may seem weird, but it's a fairly common problem. One cause is low refrigerant, but another thing can cause this to happen, and that's when a refrigerant coil is so dirty that the refrigerant can't cool down your home. This problem happens when you don't have annual maintenance done on time.

When your AC freezes over, you'll need to turn the unit off so the ice can melt. Then the air conditioning repair technician can figure out the problem. If it's due to a dirty coil, the technician can clean the coil and get your AC functioning again.

Reach out to a local AC repair technician to learn more.