Xeriscaping Areas Around A/C Units
Xeriscaping is a landscape style widely used where rainfall is sparse and the use of lawn as ground cover is seen as an extravagant waste of water. Outdoor areas that have been xeriscaped feature rock or masonry ground cover with landscape plants that require little water.
Why Xeriscape Near the Condenser?
Because there’s no lawn, the areas never need mowing, which makes a xeriscape around the outdoor condenser for central air conditioners and heat pumps an ideal landscape treatment. The outdoor condenser contains a refrigerant coil that is an integral part of the cooling process. It may be covered by fins, similar to a vehicle’s radiator, that bend easily.
Grass around the condenser needs mowing. Many times the grass clippings collect on the coil and fins that slow the cooling process, driving up energy use and equipment wear and tear. When the clippings dry on the coil or fins, they are difficult to remove. Although it’s possible, and even necessary, to clean the coils throughout the mowing season, it is tedious and time consuming to have to do it each time you mow the lawn.
How to Do it
Installing xeriscaping materials around the condenser is easy and inexpensive. Suitable ground covers include bricks, decorative stones, crushed granite, or river rocks. Sand makes a good base layer for bricks or concrete blocks, but shouldn’t be used as a finish cover. Sand easily blows and can pit the fins and coil, causing damage. Choose plant materials that don’t shed their leaves often or are evergreen and consider using drip or bubbler irrigation to prevent water from hitting the condenser. You’ll probably still have to prune the vegetation, but cleanup with a leaf blower is fast.
Using xeriscaping as a landscape design for the area around your condenser helps keep it clean and running efficiently.
To learn more, contact Sobieski Services. Helping our customers in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey learn more about home comfort and energy via HVAC and plumbing issues is our goal to help them save money and live in healthier, more comfortable homes.
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