Quick DIY Fixes for Air Conditioners and Ceiling Fans

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(Photograph by Sami Sarkis/Getty Images)

The breeze from your standing fan makes the summer night bearable, but the buzz from its vibrating base is making sleep impossible.

THE QUICK FIX
Use felt furniture pads—available from home centers and hardware stores—on the legs of the fan. The felt will dampen the buzzing, letting you sleep sweetly.


Your window air-conditioning unit is leaking.

THE QUICK FIX
You need to adjust the level of the unit. It should be slanted slightly to the back, to allow condensation to drain out of the back of the unit.


The ceiling fan is making you nervous with its wobbly rotation.

THE QUICK FIX
Generally, this is a sign that the fan blades are unbalanced. Duct tape lead weight strips, available from home centers, to each blade in turn and run the fan on low until you find the right combination of weight to stop the wobble. When the fan operates smoothly with no wobble, glue the weights to their positions.


The window air conditioner is on high and you’re still breaking a sweat.

THE QUICK FIX
Always check that the fan intake control is on "closed" rather than "open." This is counterintuitive for most people, who think the fan needs to be open to circulate air. But, in fact, the open setting means that the air conditioner’s fan is pulling outside—hot—air, rather than recirculating the cool air in the room.

With the fast pace of appliance innovations—new styles, new features, and new price tags—it’s sometimes hard to make the judgment between fixing an older appliance and ditching it for a new unit. Although the decision is largely an economic one, it is also affected by intangibles such as how comfortable you are making repairs, and whether you want to upgrade as part of remodeling.

>> WINDOW AIR CONDITIONER
Ditch if … any significant problem occurs. Window air conditioners are on their way to becoming disposable appliances. Government-mandated seasonal energy efficiency ratios (SEER) standards rise every year, pushing energy use down, so a replacement pays its way from the moment you plug it in.

Fix if … the problem is simply a reduction in cooling powers over several years of ownership—you probably just need a recharge of the coolant, which a reputable repair operation will do for far less than a new unit will cost you.

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