AC Repair in Tallahassee, FL
Air conditioners here run from April through October. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Leon County will get in touch.
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It takes about a minute.
Seven months of cooling against 91 degree afternoons
Your air conditioner runs from April through October here, and on a lot of those afternoons it is working against 91 degrees outside. That long stretch means the compressor is cycling on more often and running longer each time than it would somewhere cooler, and it's usually the compressor or the fan motor that gives out first from that kind of use. When one of those starts to fail, the unit runs without getting the house cold, or it struggles to keep up once the afternoon heat sets in.
Leon County also sees its share of rough weather. Ten years of storm records show 473 damaging wind events and 15 hail events, with hail up to 2 inches. Wind can bend the fins on your outdoor unit or drive debris into it, and hail can dent the cabinet or damage the coil inside. After a storm like that, a unit that was running fine the day before can start blowing warm air or making noise it didn't make before.
- 7 months
- April through October, your air conditioner is on duty
- 91°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 15 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 473 wind events
- in ten years, and wind drives debris into outdoor units
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new air conditioner would cut about $60 a year off cooling for a typical Leon County home.
Estimates for a typical Leon County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, Florida fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
Repair makes sense when a part like a capacitor or contactor has failed.
Replacement makes sense when the compressor has failed or the system uses R-22 refrigerant, which is no longer made.
Florida requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The state tested this contractor before handing out that license, and the Construction Industry Licensing Board keeps a record of it. That license belongs to the contractor, not to any one job, so the same license that covers a new install covers a repair call like this one.
Because this job means opening the refrigerant side of your air conditioner, whoever does the work also needs to hold EPA Section 608 certification, the same federal rule that applies in every state. That certification is not something Florida's board tracks. It exists to make sure the person handling refrigerant was trained to do it without venting it into the air or mishandling it.
Sources: Florida Legislature · Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation
- Why is my AC not blowing cold air?
- The most common reason is a dirty air filter choking off airflow across the coil. When that happens the coil can ice up, and the air coming out turns warm or weak until the ice melts. It can also mean the system is low on refrigerant from a leak, which a contractor has to find and fix rather than just top off. With summer highs around 91°F here, running the system on low refrigerant for long can push the compressor harder than it should work.
- Why is my AC leaking water?
- Warm, humid air moving across the indoor coil produces condensation, and that water is supposed to drain out through a condensate line. If that line clogs with algae or dirt, the water backs up and drips inside instead of draining outside. A dirty air filter can also cause this by making the coil ice over, then melting and shedding more water than the drain pan can handle. Since cooling runs here from April through October, that drain line gets months of steady use and is worth checking regularly.
- Why won't my AC turn on?
- Start with the thermostat. Dead batteries or a setting bumped off cool will stop the system before it ever gets a signal to start. If the thermostat looks fine, check the breaker panel, since a tripped breaker will cut power to the whole unit. Tallahassee sees frequent damaging wind, with 473 such events recorded over the past ten years, and storms like that are a common cause of tripped breakers or blown fuses in outdoor units.