AC Maintenance in Los Angeles, CA
Air conditioners here run from June through September, so May is the time for a tune-up. Tell us about your system, and a licensed contractor who covers Los Angeles County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Four months of hard running takes its toll
Your air conditioner works from June through September here, and on the afternoons it works hardest, it is pushing against 87 degree heat. That is a short season, but a demanding one. The system runs long hours to hold the house at temperature, and it does that four months straight before it gets a break.
A tune-up before summer catches what that kind of running wears down. A technician checks the refrigerant charge, the electrical connections, and the condenser coil, since a dirty coil makes the system work harder to move the same heat out of the house. Finding a weak capacitor or a loose connection in spring means it gets fixed on a mild day, not on the afternoon your air conditioner just stops.
- 4 months
- June through September, your air conditioner is on duty
- 87°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 9 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 112 wind events
- in ten years, and wind drives debris into outdoor units
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
Book your AC tune-up in May, before homes here start needing cooling in June.
- Jan
- Feb
- Mar
- Apr
- May
- Jun
- Jul
- Aug
- Sep
- Oct
- Nov
- Dec
A tune-up checks the refrigerant charge, cleans the coils, tests the capacitor and tightens the electrical connections.
California requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The Contractors State License Board tests contractors before it licenses them, then keeps a record tied to that license, not to any single job. So the license you're checking is the contractor's, and it stays the same whether they're servicing your air conditioner or installing a new one next door.
Maintenance on an air conditioner usually means checking refrigerant levels, and anyone opening that side of the system needs EPA Section 608 certification, which is a federal requirement everywhere in the country. In California, the contractor doing that work should hold both the state license and that certification.
Sources: California Legislative Counsel · Contractors State License Board
- What does AC maintenance include?
- A technician cleans the condenser coil, checks the refrigerant charge, and tests the capacitor and contactor in the outdoor unit. Inside, they check the evaporator coil and the condensate drain, since a clogged drain is one of the more common reasons an AC stops cooling. They also check that the thermostat is calling for cool properly and that airflow through the ducts is what it should be. Your filter should already be getting changed on its own schedule, but they will check it while they are there.
- How often does an air conditioner need maintenance?
- Once a year, before the season it has to work through. Homes here run the AC from June through September, so getting it checked before June means any weak part gets caught before those four months of use. A unit that sits idle the rest of the year still needs that yearly check, since parts like the capacitor and contactor wear from age as much as from use.
- Is AC maintenance worth it?
- Yes, because most AC breakdowns trace back to something a technician would have caught earlier. A weak capacitor, a dirty coil, or a low refrigerant charge all show up as warning signs before they cause a system to quit outright. With summer afternoons here averaging 87°F, a system that is not cooling well has no gentle stretch to coast through while it waits for a repair.