AC Repair in Knoxville, TN
Air conditioners here run from May through September. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Knox County will get in touch.
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Five months of heat, every year, on Knox County's air conditioners
Your air conditioner runs from May through September here, and on the afternoons it works hardest, the temperature outside is near 87°F. That is the load it carries for five straight months, not just on the worst day of the year but on most of them.
That kind of stretch wears on the compressor and the capacitor that starts it. A weak capacitor can't get the compressor going, and the unit hums or clicks but never kicks on. Knox County has also seen its share of hail and wind over the past ten years, and a bent or damaged outdoor coil or fan blade shows up as an air conditioner that runs but cools poorly, or one that trips off on its own.
- 5 months
- May through September, your air conditioner is on duty
- 87°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 28 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 181 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 Knox County home.
Estimates for a typical Knox 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 a dirty air filter cutting off airflow across the coil. When air can't move through the coil, it can start to freeze over and the air coming out turns warm or weak. A low refrigerant charge from a leak causes the same thing, and so does a compressor that's failing. Check the filter first, since that's the one thing you can rule out yourself before a contractor looks at the rest.
- Why is my AC leaking water?
- Water around your AC usually means the condensate drain line is clogged. Algae and dust build up inside that line over a cooling season and block the water from draining out, so it backs up and spills out near the indoor unit instead. A frozen coil that then thaws can cause the same kind of puddle. Either way, a contractor needs to clear the line or find why the coil froze.
- Why won't my AC turn on?
- Start with your thermostat batteries and your breaker panel, since a dead battery or a tripped breaker will stop the whole system cold. If those are fine, the problem is likely in the electrical components that start the compressor or the outdoor fan. With 181 damaging wind events here over the past ten years, storm-related power surges are a real cause of that kind of failure. A contractor can test those parts and tell you which one failed.