AC Repair in Cleveland, OH
Air conditioners here run from June through August. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Cuyahoga County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Three months of heat, then storms on top of it
Cleveland only asks an air conditioner to run from June through August. Summer afternoons average 80°F through those three months, and the compressor is what carries that load. Short cooling season or not, the parts that start it and keep it running are the ones that wear.
Cuyahoga County has also logged 221 damaging wind events and 39 hail events over the past ten years, with hail up to 2 inches. Wind can rock an outdoor unit on its pad or drive debris into the fins. Hail that size can bend the fins or dent the cabinet. After either one, the sign is usually the same. The unit runs, but the air coming out is not as cool as it should be, or it does not come on at all.
- 3 months
- June through August, your air conditioner is on duty
- 80°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 39 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 221 wind events
- in ten years, and wind drives debris into outdoor units
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new air conditioner would save little on running costs in Cuyahoga County, so the repair decision comes down to the unit's condition.
Estimates for a typical Cuyahoga County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, Ohio 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.
In Ohio, HVAC licensing for homes is left to the counties.
Cuyahoga County sets its own rule for who can do HVAC work on a home here, since Ohio leaves that to the counties instead of licensing contractors itself. Ohio does define what a home contractor is, and that definition includes carrying at least $250,000 in liability insurance. That is not a license and nobody tests for it. It just sets a floor for what counts as a legitimate contracting business in the state's eyes.
For a repair on your air conditioner, the protection that actually applies everywhere, in every county and every state, is the EPA Section 608 certification. Anyone who opens the refrigerant side of your system, to check a charge or fix a leak, has to hold it. That is a federal requirement, not a county one, so it does not change based on your address the way licensing here does.
Source: Ohio Legislative Service Commission
- Why is my AC not blowing cold air?
- The most common cause is a dirty air filter choking off airflow, so start there and replace it if it looks gray or clogged. If the filter is clean, the problem could be low refrigerant from a leak, a failing compressor, or ice built up on the coil from restricted airflow. Warm air blowing from the vents with the system running normally otherwise usually points to something a contractor needs to diagnose with gauges, since low refrigerant means a leak that has to be found and sealed, not just topped off.
- Why is my AC leaking water?
- Water around your air handler usually means the condensate drain line is clogged. As the air conditioner runs, it pulls moisture out of the air and that water is supposed to drain outside through this line, but algae and dirt build up inside it over time and block the flow. When that happens the water backs up and drips from the unit or the drain pan instead. A frozen coil that then thaws can cause the same kind of puddling, so if you see ice on the coil first, that points to an airflow problem rather than a clogged line.
- Why won't my AC turn on?
- Check your thermostat first, since dead batteries or a setting knocked to the wrong mode is a common and simple cause. If the thermostat looks right, check your breaker panel, since a tripped breaker will shut the whole system down. If the breaker is fine and the thermostat is calling for cooling but nothing happens, the capacitor or the contactor in the outdoor unit is a likely cause, and that's a job for a contractor to test and replace.