I’m used to having service technicians and tradespeople work completely independent of my input or advice.
For anything like fixing my car to rewiring a light fixture in my living room.
I have always taken it for granted assuming that I don’t ever need to supervise or inspect work I’m paying someone to do for me; and, I have followed this trend with my heating and cooling maintenance work. There are a number of different expectations I have always had with HVAC suppliers when called over on routine service tune-ups. The evaporator coil should be inspected along with the air and refrigerant pressure measurements. Additional coolant needs to be added if the system is desperate for a top-off for any reason. Aside from other visual inspections of inner components, the condensate line for the central HVAC system needs to be flushed to keep it free of debris. As your air conditioner runs, moisture is pulled from the air as it is cooled by the evaporator coil. This moisture collects in the condensate drip pan before it eventually exits the house through a long PVC pipe outside into the grass next to your house. This long pipe is called the condensate drip line and it can naturally accumulate algae and fungal growth, which if neglected and not flushed out, could lead to a catastrophic leak in your house. The water could back up into your air handler and soak into the subflooring below before you even realize there’s a problem. The amount of water damage is unimaginable, so it’s important to remind technicians to flush the condensate line even if you assume they’re going to do it all on their own. I made that mistake and now I have an expensive problem to clean up that could have been avoided from the start.