Mold grows in places that are warm and damp and don’t get a lot of light. If you don’t keep up with its maintenance, your air conditioner can become a great target for mold growth.

 Organic matter from dust and dirt in the air can build up in the filter and give mold what it needs to grow.

According to AC repair services, the cool thing is that you can keep mold from growing in your air conditioner if you clean or replace the filter often.

If you haven’t used your air conditioner in a few months or if it smells musty when you turn it on, check it to see if mold is growing inside.

Signs that you have mold in your air conditioner

One of the most obvious signs is a musty smell that only fills the room when the air conditioner is on. 

The musty smell might only be in one room if you have a window-mounted, freestanding, or wall-mounted air conditioner. However, if there is a lot of mold in your central AC unit, the smell could spread throughout your house.

Another sign of mold is large patches of mold in the house. You know the AC unit has mold if you see fuzzy, black, or green-black patches. 

Black is the most common color for mold, but it can also be brown, green, white, pink, yellow, or even orange.

You need to check the air filter to confirm that your air conditioner has mold. Begin with unplugging the AC and taking off the front or back grill.

Take out the filter and look for brown, black, or greenish spots that might look fuzzy. If there are no signs of mold on the filter, get a flashlight and look inside the unit. 

This is harder to do if you have a central air conditioner because most of the machine is out of reach. You can use a flashlight to look for signs of mold buildup in the supply vents, air ducts, fan, and outside AC unit. 

You will need to hire a professional HVAC maintenance company if you want a more thorough check.

What should you do if you have mold in your air conditioner?

If there is mold in your air conditioning unit, you should immediately take care of it. If mold is growing in a small air conditioner in a big way, it’s best to replace the unit with a new one. 

This is because even if you clean it a lot, there’s a good chance that mold will keep growing in places you can’t see. But if the mold isn’t too bad, you can remove it before it takes over the whole AC unit.

When cleaning, put on safety glasses, a face mask, and gloves, and then move the unit to a place, like a driveway, where you can clean it without contaminating the rest of the house. 

Open the air conditioning unit and take the filter out. You can either throw away the old filter or wash it in 1 part liquid bleach to 10 parts water and let it sit for at least 10 minutes to kill mold.

You should rinse the filter and let it dry in the open air. While the filter dries, use the bleach and water solution to clean all the affected parts of the air conditioner.

 Rinse the AC unit, ensuring no electrical parts are wet. Always let it dry before putting the filter back in.

How to prevent mold from coming in the future

Besides hiring air conditioner repair services Stony Brook to service your appliance, there are plenty of other ways to prevent mold from forming in your appliance. 

One way to do it is to stop moisture from building up in the air conditioner is to regularly empty the water collection tank or buy an air conditioner with humidity control. 

About once a month, or as often as the manufacturer says, you should change out disposable filters.

If you don’t want your air conditioning unit to run constantly, turn it up instead of turning it off. This will let the AC turn on and off more often, making mold less likely to grow inside.