AC Repair in Columbia, TN
Air conditioners here run from May through September. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Maury County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Five months of heat in a row wears on a system
From May through September your air conditioner is the only thing standing between your house and 88 degree afternoons. It runs long hours, day after day, with barely a break to cool down before the next one starts.
That kind of steady demand wears on the compressor and the fan motor, the parts doing the actual work of moving heat out of your house. When one of them starts to go, you notice it as warm air coming through the vents, or the unit running longer than it used to without the house getting any cooler. Maury County also sees its share of hail and wind, and a hard storm can bend the fins on your outdoor unit or knock it out of alignment, so it's worth a look outside after a bad one.
- 5 months
- May through September, your air conditioner is on duty
- 88°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 13 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 104 wind events
- in ten years, and wind drives debris into outdoor units
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new air conditioner would cut about $40 a year off cooling for a typical Maury County home.
Estimates for a typical Maury County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, Tennessee 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.
- Why is my AC not blowing cold air?
- The most common reason is low refrigerant from a leak, which means the system isn't out of gas, it's losing what it has. A dirty air filter can also block airflow across the coil until it freezes over, and once that happens you get weak or warm air until it thaws. With Columbia summer afternoons averaging 88°F, a system already low on refrigerant or fighting a clogged filter has to work harder and falls behind fast. A contractor can check refrigerant levels and airflow to find which one it is.
- Why is my AC leaking water?
- Most often the condensate drain line is clogged, so the water that normally drips away backs up and finds another way out. It can also mean the drain pan has rusted through, or the coil has frozen and is now melting and overflowing as it thaws. A dirty air filter is a common cause of that coil freezing in the first place, since it restricts the airflow the coil needs to stay above freezing. Clearing the line or replacing the pan is a job for a contractor once they know which one it is.
- Why won't my AC turn on?
- Check the thermostat first, since dead batteries or a setting that's off or on the wrong mode will stop the system before it even starts. A tripped breaker or blown fuse is the next most likely cause, especially after a storm. Columbia has seen 104 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and a power surge from one of those can trip a breaker or damage the outdoor unit's capacitor. If the thermostat and breaker both check out, a contractor will need to look at the electrical components inside the unit itself.