AC Repair in Houma, LA
Air conditioners here run from April through October. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Terrebonne Parish will get in touch.
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Seven months of heat wears an AC down in Terrebonne Parish
Your air conditioner runs from April through October here, seven months of the year. On afternoons that average 90°F, it is cycling on and off most of the day just to hold the house steady, and that adds up to a lot of hours on the compressor and the capacitors that start it.
You tend to notice a system reaching its limit as afternoons like these do it in. It runs and runs without bringing the house down to temperature, or it keeps up in the morning and falls behind by mid afternoon.
Terrebonne Parish has also logged 28 damaging wind events and 10 hail events over the past ten years, with hail up to 2 inches. Wind can loosen the electrical connections in the outdoor unit, and hail that size can bend or crack the fins on the outdoor coil, which makes the system work harder to move heat outside.
- 7 months
- April through October, your air conditioner is on duty
- 90°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 10 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 28 wind events
- in ten years, and wind drives debris into outdoor units
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new air conditioner would cut about $80 a year off cooling for a typical Terrebonne Parish home.
Estimates for a typical Terrebonne Parish home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, Louisiana 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.
Louisiana requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors tests contractors before they can hold this license, and keeps a record of who holds one. That license belongs to the contractor, not to any single job, so it stays in place from one repair to the next rather than being issued fresh each time.
For an air conditioner repair, the license tells you the contractor was tested and is on record with the state. If the repair involves opening the refrigerant side of the system, which most air conditioner repairs do, federal law also requires the technician to hold EPA Section 608 certification. That certification is separate from the state license and comes from the federal government, not Louisiana.
Source: Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors
- Why is my AC not blowing cold air?
- Most often the filter is clogged and starving the system of airflow, or the refrigerant charge is low. A dirty filter makes the evaporator coil so cold it ices over, and once that happens you get warm air or no air at all until the ice melts. Low refrigerant means a leak somewhere in the line, and that only gets fixed by a technician who holds EPA Section 608 certification, since that is federal law for anyone opening the refrigerant side. Running seven months a year here, filters clog faster than in places with a short cooling season, so check it first before assuming something worse.
- Why is my AC leaking water?
- Water on the floor near your indoor unit usually means the condensate drain line is clogged. Your AC pulls a lot of moisture out of the air, especially with summer afternoons here averaging 90°F, and that water is supposed to run out through a drain line to the outside. Algae or debris can block that line, and once it backs up the water has nowhere to go but out of the pan. A frozen coil that's now thawing can also flood the pan faster than it can drain, so if the air was blowing weak or warm before you saw water, that's likely the cause.
- Why won't my AC turn on?
- Check the thermostat first, since dead batteries or a setting knocked off cool are the simplest explanation. If the thermostat looks fine, check the breaker, since a tripped breaker will shut the whole system down. With 28 damaging wind events recorded here over the past ten years, power interruptions and surges are common enough to trip a breaker or damage the outdoor unit's control board. If the breaker is fine and the thermostat is calling for cooling but nothing happens, the problem is inside the system and needs a licensed contractor to diagnose it.