AC Installation in St. Augustine, FL
A new air conditioner in St. Augustine will run from April through October every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers St. Johns County will get in touch.
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St. Johns County asks a lot of a new air conditioner
Your air conditioner runs April through October here, seven months of the year. Summer afternoons average 90°F, and that's the load it's built for, not a few weeks of heat but a long stretch of it.
A new system installed here has to meet a federal minimum of 14.3 SEER2. That's the floor, not a feature, and any unit installed today should meet it.
- 7 months
- April through October, your air conditioner is on duty
- 90°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 33 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 13.4 SEER2
- the federal minimum any new unit must meet
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
Going above the federal minimum saves little here, about $20 a year.
Estimates for a typical St. Johns County home, from EIA household energy data, Florida fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
Florida requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The state license is held by the contractor, not tied to this one installation. Florida's Construction Industry Licensing Board tests contractors before they can hold that license, and the license is what's on record with the state.
For an air conditioner installation, that license is what stands behind the person doing the work. On top of that, most cities and counties in Florida require a permit from the local building office before the installation starts, and an inspection once it's done, so someone outside the contractor also looks at the finished work.
Sources: Florida Legislature · Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation
- What size air conditioner does my house need?
- It depends on your square footage, your ceiling height, how much shade your house gets, and how well it holds cooled air, not just the size of the room you're cooling. A contractor works this out with a load calculation, not a tape measure and a guess. Get this wrong and you end up with a unit that either can't keep up on a 90°F afternoon or one that cycles on and off so fast it never pulls the humidity out of the air. Ask whoever quotes the job to walk you through the load calculation before they tell you a tonnage.
- Should I replace the whole system or just the outdoor unit?
- In most cases you replace both together. The outdoor condenser and the indoor coil are matched to work at a specific efficiency, and pairing a new condenser with an old coil usually means you lose the efficiency gain you're paying for, sometimes voiding the warranty too. If your indoor coil and ductwork are still in good shape and only a few years newer than the condenser, a contractor can tell you whether a matched replacement makes sense. Have someone inspect the whole system before you decide, not just the part that failed.
- Do HVAC contractors in St. Augustine need a state license to work on my home?
- Yes. Florida requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license, issued by the Construction Industry Licensing Board. Ask to see the license number before work starts, and you can check it against the board's records yourself.