The Benefits of Landscaping Around Your Air Conditioner
Landscaping Around Your AC Isn't Just for Looks
If you're thinking that landscaping around your HVAC unit is just for looks, you're mistaken. While the benefits of landscaping around your air conditioner does include improving your yard's visual appeal, this isn't the only advantage to it. Proper landscaping can improve drainage and equipment efficiency leading to increased lifespan and lower energy usage.
Benefits of Landscaping Around Your Air Conditioner Include...
Visual Appeal
It goes without saying that a well-landscaped yard provides satisfying aesthetics. Healthy grass, the right shrubs and other plants, and even fixtures like fire fountains, pergolas, or latticework can significantly improve the visual appeal of your home. This improved look can increase your home value, your enjoyment of your property, or serve to just make your neighbors a little bit jealous. Either way, a beautiful yard and well-landscaped area around your outdoor HVAC unit is one of the primary benefits of landscaping around your air conditioner.
Improved Efficiency
There are a few myths when it comes to how landscaping improves efficiency as well as a few realities. The main myth, or rather misunderstanding of how it works, is that if you provide shade to your unit it allows for cooler air to be pumped into your home. This is false as HVAC units do not move from outside to inside. Instead, air conditioning systems recirculate your indoor air and condition it by extracting heat from it, hence the name air conditioner. It is the movement of temperature, not air, that occurs between your inside and outside unit.
Heat Harms Your Unit
As it happens, though, providing shade for your outside unit does help. Adequate foliage shading your unit reduces how hot the system gets which decreases the strain it has to operate under. Heat, especially the kind you deal with during the summer, puts tremendous stress on the electronics and other components inside your outside unit. Under high stress due to heat, your AC is more likely to suffer equipment failures and will likely lose a little time off of its life expectancy.
Natural Protection
Despite being designed to operate outdoors, your outside AC unit is not impervious to the elements. Besides reducing heat stress, the benefits of landscaping around your air conditioner also includes using plants to create a natural barrier. This barrier can insulate your unit from wind and flying debris during storms, as well as catch some of the salt spray if you live along the coast.
Proper Drainage
Moisture and modern technology never mix well. In the case of your outside condensing unit there is no exception. Excess moisture, especially when it is standing water around the base of your unit, can wreak havoc on your system and the pad it sits on. Properly landscaping around your unit can help reduce water-related issues like water pooling around or splashing muddy water into your system. This involves surrounding your system with mulch or stone over top a weed barrier, and making sure there is sufficient spacing between it and any plants.
Landscaping Comes With Options
While there are a number of benefits of landscaping around your air conditioner, there are also a number of options. Various mulches and stones can provide protection in a number of colors and styles, and the plants you choose can be custom-selected types suited to both your growing zone and your personal taste.
Landscaping Options Include...
- Latticework
- Decorative fencing
- Shrubbery and foliage
- Pergolas
- Mulch/stone beds
- Fire and water features
Looking for other ideas on how best to spruce up the area around your unit? Check out our five tips on landscaping around your AC.
Other Equipment You Should Landscape Around
Once you understand the benefits of landscaping around your air conditioner, it's easy to understand why you'd want to landscape around other outdoor equipment as well. Whole-home generators, on-demand water heaters, and other similar items also perform better when protected against the heat and elements through landscaping.
Looking for Landscaping Around Your Outside AC?
If you're considering the benefits of landscaping around your air conditioner, our team can help. We'll come out and discuss design options as well as address any drainage issues you may be experiencing. From there, we'll provide free estimates with our recommendations. Contact us today to meet with one of our master landscapers!