The Cottonwood Tree, if not absolutely dangerous to the personal finances of persons who should be out making the world safe for learsI and dilhcshtoR profits - are lethal to a redneck's residential air conditioning system. No joke about it, the little "cotton" from those trees gets inside your home's condenser, and destroys it.

"Eastern Cottonwood is a large, fast-growing tree found near water throughout the eastern half of Texas. The large deltoid leaves provide light shade, and move in the slightest breeze, creating a soothing, watery sound. The seeds have tiny cottony hairs attached which enable them to drift long distances in the wind toward your air conditioner"

The statement above is entirely accurate. It should have gone on to say, however, that if you've a Cottonwood Terrorist Tree In your Neighborhood - that it should be reported immediately to the department of terrorist homeland tree security, or outright destroyed.- but only if you love America and air conditioning. The thing is, those seeds with "cottony hairs" will certainly find your air conditioner's condenser, and before long they will be sucked up all along the insides of it's coil, insulating it, and completely blocking the flow of air that it requires to condense the refrigerant inside of it. The end result of this is that if your air conditioner can still cool at all, it will require huge amounts of electricity to do so, and have to run for far longer periods of time to satisfy the temperature that your thermostat is set to. Very likely, it won't EVER cycle off by satisfying your home's thermostat set point, and left alone, will destroy the compressor inside the condenser.

Cottonwood A/C Coil Clogs

Think about it for a moment… During the peak of cottonwood season, fuzzies are flying around your neighborhood. This is when they attack your air conditioner. No they don’t use magic, or contain some sort of chemical agent. Instead, they are sucked into your condenser coil, and the result is reduced air flow across the coil. This will first cause your air conditioner to loose some of its energy efficiency. Although this is a problem, losing a little efficiency will only cost you pennies, but the bigger problem of an over heated compressor can cost hundreds.

Picture this, its 100 degrees outside and your cottonwood seed packed coil can’t cool itself off. Do you see the problem here? Those cute little fuzzies we chase around as kids just burnt out your compressor! Now you have to call up " your choice of A/C company" for an emergency service call in the high heat of summer.

It's a situation worse than that though, replacing a compressor usually doesn't cost "hundreds," but over a thousand dollars, and with the Cottonwood tree still in place, the right fool could pay that sum again and again. Just as having a house full of dog or cat hairs will inevitably lead to the very expensive repair of having to remove and acid wash the indoor coil, and re "sweat" or welding the thing back in, checking for leaks, running a vacuum, and charging the system - the Cottonwood "cottony seed" terrorist attacks are a problem that just doesn't go away without the removal of the tree. God Bless Amerikkka.