{"id":1307,"date":"2023-08-14T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-14T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/?p=1307"},"modified":"2023-09-11T13:36:44","modified_gmt":"2023-09-11T17:36:44","slug":"how-to-turn-off-your-air-conditioner-without-the-thermostat-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/air-conditioning-service\/how-to-turn-off-your-air-conditioner-without-the-thermostat-2\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Turn Off Your Air Conditioner (Without the Thermostat)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Your thermostat reads the temperature of the room, then sends an on or off signal to the air conditioner. The AC itself isn\u2019t detecting the temperature in your home, so it has to rely on the thermostat. But what happens when it becomes unreliable?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incorrect signals are being sent to the AC, or the last signal your thermostat sent was an \u201con\u201d request, and it never followed up with an \u201coff\u201d request. You need to know how to turn off your air conditioner<\/a>, so here are a few ways that don\u2019t involve the thermostat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Turn Off Your AC Outside at the Switch<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For central air conditioners, you\u2019ll have a switch outside that\u2019s protected by a flip-up cap. This is usually attached to the outside of your home, and it\u2019s somewhere near the air conditioner cabinet. It\u2019s unlikely that you’ll find it too far away from there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flip the switch. When you do, the fans of your air conditioner should stop, and whatever noise it produces should wind down. However, it\u2019s still good to check if there\u2019s airflow coming out of your vents inside the house. This could indicate that there\u2019s still power going to the blower motor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If this worked, that\u2019s great. Now you can wait for your HVAC technician to arrive and take it from here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Power it Down at the Breaker<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Your circuit breaker is a metal box located in your home, embedded into the wall. Inside, there are switches that control the electrical flow to different zones in your home. We say zones because it\u2019s not as simple as one switch controlling one outlet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You should see labels next to the switches. Look for \u201cAC\u201d or \u201cAir Conditioner\u201d somewhere in the box. It\u2019s not uncommon for circuit breaker labels to be a mess or have chicken scratch handwriting, so do the best you can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you find the one for your AC, flip the switch to power it down. This may appear as two switches bridged by a metal bracket; that\u2019s perfectly okay. When you power it down, check to see if your AC is off. If it\u2019s not, the box may have been mislabeled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t Interfere With Any Wiring<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s important to note that you shouldn\u2019t touch any wiring, exposed or otherwise, to turn off your air conditioner. You may find some tutorials on YouTube, but not all of them are safe to perform. There is a serious risk of electrocution and potential death. The switch and breaker options are safe, but outside of those,\u00a0don’t try to tamper with any other parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s Time for a Technician<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Now that you\u2019ve successfully powered down your air conditioner, it\u2019s time to call for assistance. While you\u2019ve turned off the power for now, the next step isn\u2019t to flip breaker switches every time you want it to get cold in the house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Call a technician as soon as possible so you can restore your AC\u2019s normal functionality, and start enjoying the comfort of your home again. This was a terrible disruption, but we\u2019ll get everything fixed as quickly as we can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contact us today<\/strong><\/a> to schedule your AC repair as soon as possible. If your home had a voice\u2026 it would call First Choice!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your AC isn’t powering down on its own, and that’s a much bigger problem than you might think. Let’s walk you through what to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[39,90],"class_list":["post-1307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-conditioning-service","tag-ac-repair","tag-air-conditioning-repair"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1307"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1322,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1307\/revisions\/1322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstchoiceheat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}