Air conditioning questions, answered

The two usual causes are a low refrigerant charge and a condenser coil that cannot reject heat. In Dallas the coil is worth checking first — cottonwood, grass clippings and hail-flattened fins all reduce heat transfer. A system low on charge has a leak somewhere, since refrigerant is a sealed loop and is not consumed.

Most often the outdoor unit has stopped running while the indoor blower keeps going, so you get air movement without cooling. A failed run capacitor is the most common single cause in North Texas summers. Step outside and listen: indoor fan running, outdoor fan still, narrows it sharply.

A tripped condensate float switch is the cause we find most often. It is a small safety device that cuts the system when the drain pan fills, and it does its job so quietly that most homeowners do not know it exists. Check the breaker too, but do not reset one that trips again immediately.

Nearly always a clogged condensate drain line. The system pulls a lot of humidity out of Texas air, and that water has to go somewhere. When the line clogs with biological growth, the pan overflows. Turn the system off to stop the overflow — this is an active water damage risk, not something to leave until morning.

Turn the system off and set the fan to on so the coil can thaw. Ice means airflow was restricted or the charge is low, and running a frozen system risks returning liquid refrigerant to the compressor — turning an inexpensive repair into an expensive one. Check the filter while it thaws.

Yes, and stop resetting it. A breaker that trips repeatedly is reporting a fault, not causing one — usually a shorted component or a motor drawing far more current than it should. Repeatedly resetting it removes the protection without fixing anything. This needs a technician.

Less than the national figures suggest. Our cooling season runs April into October with sustained 100-degree afternoons, so a North Texas system accumulates runtime hours far faster than the same unit in a milder climate. Systems here commonly start requiring real decisions in their early teens rather than at twenty.

At fifteen years, a major component failure — compressor or evaporator coil — usually points toward replacement, because the repair costs a large fraction of a system that would be substantially more efficient. A small part failure on an otherwise healthy fifteen-year-old system is often still worth repairing.

R-22 has not been produced or imported in the United States since 2020. Existing systems can still be serviced, but only with reclaimed refrigerant at scarcity pricing. That does not mean replace it today — it means a refrigerant leak is now a much more significant event, and it shifts the repair-versus-replace math.

The data plate on the outdoor unit states it. R-22 systems are generally pre-2010 installations; R-410A replaced it in residential equipment. If the plate is weathered past reading, a technician can identify it from the system's age and service ports.

Higher ratings pay back faster here than in most of the country, because payback scales with cooling hours and Dallas has a lot of them. Whether the premium tier is worth it depends on how long you plan to stay in the house and how the unit is sized — an oversized high-SEER2 system will underperform a correctly sized mid-tier one.

Heat rises, and the ductwork feeding the upper floor typically runs through an attic that reaches 140 degrees on a Dallas afternoon. Air loses capacity across those runs exactly when the upstairs needs it most. It is usually a duct design and insulation problem rather than a broken part, which is why it never fixes itself.

No, and this is the most common sizing mistake. An oversized system cools the air quickly, satisfies the thermostat, and shuts off before it has run long enough to remove humidity. You get a house that is cold and clammy, plus short-cycling that wears the compressor. Correct sizing comes from a Manual J load calculation, not square footage.

More often than the packaging suggests, because a Dallas system runs far more hours than average. A one-inch filter during peak cooling season generally needs checking monthly. A filter left in too long is the single most common cause of the frozen coils we are called out to.

Higher is not automatically better. A denser filter captures more but restricts airflow, and a system designed for moderate resistance can lose enough airflow to freeze the coil. Mid-range MERV filters suit most residential systems. If someone in the house has allergies, the better answer is often a thicker media filter rather than a denser one-inch.

Once a year before cooling season, and a heating check in the fall if you have a furnace or heat pump. Most mid-summer breakdowns trace back to something a spring visit would have caught — a weak capacitor, a dirty coil, a drain line starting to close up.

Yes, and DFW sits in one of the most active hail regions in the country. The damage is to the condenser coil fins, which flatten and block airflow through the coil. The unit keeps running, so most homeowners never connect a dented cabinet to the higher head pressure and reduced cooling that follow.

Power flickers and surges during North Texas thunderstorms are hard on capacitors and control boards. Debris blown into the condenser is the other common one. If the outdoor unit is rattling after a storm, look through the top grille before assuming a mechanical failure.

No. Condensers are built for outdoor exposure, and a full cover traps moisture and gives rodents somewhere sheltered to nest in the wiring. If you have a heat pump, covering it is actively harmful — it runs in winter. Clearing leaves and debris from around the unit is worth doing; wrapping it is not.

A heat pump runs a defrost cycle in cold weather, so seeing it steam or briefly blow cool air is normal, not a fault. What a hard North Texas freeze exposes is a system that was already marginal — a weak defrost board or low charge shows up as ice that does not clear. February 2021 made that lesson expensive for a lot of households.

Dallas plus ten surrounding cities: Plano, Irving, Garland, Richardson, Carrollton, Frisco, McKinney, Arlington, Grand Prairie and Mesquite. Each has its own page covering that city's neighborhoods and housing stock specifically. Call to confirm coverage for your street.

A technician diagnoses the problem first, then gives you an itemized price for the work that fixes it. You approve that price before anything is taken apart, and nothing gets added mid-job without a conversation. No work proceeds on an assumption.

Trane, Carrier, Lennox, Goodman, Rheem, American Standard, York and Amana, which covers most of what is installed across Dallas-Fort Worth. Common wear parts for these are widely stocked locally, which is often the difference between a same-visit repair and a return trip.

What the system is doing right now, when it started, and whether a storm or power flicker came first. The brand and rough age help — both are on the data plate of the outdoor unit. And mention if you have already checked the filter and breaker, so we do not repeat steps you have done.