Do you have an air conditioner that's not working as well as it should? Are you tired of your home getting too hot during the day? Your first instinct might be to think that your air conditioner has completely broken and needs to be replaced. However, this isn't necessarily the case. There are a number of issues that may be preventing your air conditioner from working as well as it has in the past. While you are waiting for a professional to come check out your air conditioner, here are some things that you may want to try:

Use different curtains: Curtains are one thing that an air conditioning services technician might not think to mention but they are important for helping to keep your home cool. Thin and lightweight curtains may be attractive but the additional sunlight can also be a disadvantage. Even if you have double-insulated windows, sunlight can carry more heat than you might otherwise expect. In order for your air conditioner to work as efficiently as possible, install thicker curtains that can be closed as necessary, during the warmest parts of the day, to help provide an additional layer of insulation that helps to keep the air inside your home from heating up.

Change batteries: Modern digital thermostats use batteries, even if they are hardwired into your home. These batteries are used to store settings when the power goes out. For some types of thermostats, they may appear to be attached to your home's wiring but instead completely rely on the batteries for power. If these batteries then get low, the thermostat will be unable to communicate with the air conditioner and won't turn on when your home gets warm. Although there may still be an issue that needs to be resolved by your air conditioning services technician, swapping out the batteries may be sufficient to get your home to cool down again.

New filter: Although your air conditioner's filter may say that it lasts for 60 or 90 days, this isn't a guarantee. If you have high levels of pollen in the air around your home, for instance, your air filter will get clogged more quickly than when there is a low pollen count. The same can be said of homes that have one or more cats or dogs, with the pet hair potentially clogging up filters before their expected time is up. When your filter gets clogged, your air conditioner won't be able to work in the way that it should. This can cause overheating or other problems that need to be fixed by your air conditioning services technician, but simply changing out the filter more frequently may still help resolve the issue temporarily.