How to Get Your AC Ready for a Burbank Heat Wave
Every summer follows the same script in the east Valley: the first real heat wave rolls in, temperatures in Burbank push past 100°, and within 48 hours every HVAC company from North Hollywood to Glendale is booked out for days. The AC units that fail are almost always the ones that went into the heat wave with a preexisting weakness.
Here’s how to not be one of those calls.
Why heat waves kill AC units
An air conditioner moves heat from inside your house to the outside air. The hotter it is outside, the harder that job gets — at 105°, your system is running at the edge of its design limits for hours at a time. Components that were marginal in May (a weakening capacitor, a dirty condenser coil, a slightly low refrigerant charge) fail outright under that load. The heat wave doesn’t break your AC; it exposes what was already breaking.
The pre-heat-wave checklist
Change the filter. The single highest-value five minutes of AC maintenance. A clean filter means proper airflow, which means the system sheds heat the way it was designed to.
Rinse the outdoor condenser coil. Turn off power to the unit (there’s a disconnect box next to it), then gently rinse the fins with a garden hose from the inside out if you can, or outside-in at low pressure. Cottonwood fluff, dust, and dryer lint choke condensers — a dirty coil can meaningfully cut cooling capacity right when you need every bit of it.
Clear two feet around the unit. Trim back plants and move anything stored against it. The condenser needs to breathe.
Test it on a mild day. Run the AC for 20–30 minutes on an 85° day. Is the air at the vents genuinely cold? Does the outdoor fan run smoothly? Any new noises? Problems found in June get fixed in days; problems found during a July heat wave get fixed after everyone else’s.
Check your thermostat batteries (if yours takes them). A dead thermostat during a heat wave is a maddeningly common “AC failure.”
During the heat wave itself
Set it and leave it. Cranking the thermostat down to 65 doesn’t cool the house faster — the system cools at one speed; a lower setpoint just makes it run longer. Pick a livable temperature and hold it. Close blinds on south- and west-facing windows in the afternoon (hillside and Rancho-area homes with big western exposure know this pain). Run heat-producing appliances — oven, dryer — in the evening instead of mid-afternoon.
And give the system realistic expectations: most residential ACs are designed to hold about 20 degrees below the outdoor temperature. On a 108° day, an indoor temp of 88 dropping slowly isn’t a broken AC — it’s physics. If the air at the vents is cold and the system runs continuously, it’s doing its job.
If it does fail
Check the breaker, check the filter, check for ice on the lines (if iced, shut it off and let it thaw). If none of that revives it, you’re calling someone — and the earlier in the day you call, the better your odds of same-day service. Our AC repair page covers what the common failures cost, or call the number at the top of the page.
Need a hand? We serve all of Burbank with upfront pricing. Call (818) 555-0142 — open 7 days · 7am–9pm.