AC Repair in Roseville, CA
Air conditioners here run from July through August. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Placer County will get in touch.
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Two months of real heat, then long stretches of quiet
Roseville only asks for cooling from July through August, but those two months work the system hard. Summer afternoons average 84°F, and a system that sits idle most of the year has to start up strong when that heat hits. Capacitors and contactors that haven't cycled in months are the ones most likely to fail on the first hot day.
Placer County has also logged 223 damaging wind events over the past ten years, along with hail up to 1.25 inches. Wind drives debris into the outdoor unit's coil and fan, and hail can dent the housing or bend the fins that let it shed heat. If your air conditioner is blowing warm or struggling to keep up, a knocked-around outdoor unit is worth ruling out.
- 2 months
- July through August, your air conditioner is on duty
- 84°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 6 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 223 wind events
- in ten years, and wind drives debris into outdoor units
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new air conditioner would cut about $30 a year off cooling for a typical Placer County home.
Estimates for a typical Placer County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, California 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.
California requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The Contractors State License Board tests the contractor before handing out a license, then keeps a record of them. The license covers the contractor as a whole. It is not issued per job, so the same license that lets someone install a furnace also lets them work on your air conditioner.
Repairing an air conditioner means opening the refrigerant side of the system. Federal law requires anyone who does that work, in any state, to hold EPA Section 608 certification. A contractor working on your AC in Placer County needs both. The state license puts them on record. The federal certification covers the refrigerant work itself.
Sources: California Legislative Counsel · Contractors State License Board
- Why is my AC not blowing cold air?
- The most common reason is a dirty air filter choking off airflow, which can make the coil ice up and stop cooling altogether. Low refrigerant from a leak is another common cause, and that will need a licensed contractor to find and fix, since refrigerant work is not a homeowner job. It could also be the compressor itself failing, especially on an older unit. Check the filter first since that is the one thing you can rule out yourself.
- Why is my AC leaking water?
- Water around your AC usually means the condensate drain line is clogged. As the system runs, it pulls moisture out of the air and that water is supposed to drain away through a small line, but algae and debris build up inside it over time and block the path. When that happens, the water backs up and drips out wherever it can, sometimes into the house. A dirty filter can also cause this indirectly, since a frozen coil will drip water everywhere as it thaws.
- Why won't my AC turn on?
- Start with your thermostat. Make sure it is set to cool and set below the room temperature, and check that it has power if it runs on batteries. If the thermostat looks fine, check your breaker panel, since a tripped breaker will cut power to the whole system. With 223 damaging wind events recorded in this area over the past ten years, a power blip from a storm is a real possibility, and sometimes a system just needs the breaker reset to come back on. If the breaker keeps tripping once you reset it, that points to an electrical problem inside the unit that a licensed contractor needs to look at.