AC Repair in Lancaster, OH
Air conditioners here run from June through August. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Fairfield County will get in touch.
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Three months of hard running, then years of storms
Your air conditioner in Lancaster only gets three months to do its job, June through August, and it has to work through summer afternoons that average 83°F. That kind of heat means long run times, the compressor cycling on for hours at a stretch instead of resting between short bursts. A unit that's already stressed from those long runs has less to give when something else goes wrong.
And Fairfield County has given it plenty to deal with. Ten years of storms brought 31 hail events and hailstones up to 2.5 inches, along with 81 damaging wind events. Hail that size can bend the thin fins on your outdoor coil or dent the cabinet, and high wind can knock the unit out of level or send debris into it. If your system is cooling worse than it used to, or making noise it didn't before, a storm may be the reason, even one from a while back.
- 3 months
- June through August, your air conditioner is on duty
- 83°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 31 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 81 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 Fairfield County, so the repair decision comes down to the unit's condition.
Estimates for a typical Fairfield 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.
Whether a contractor needs a license for this repair depends on where the house sits in the county, since Ohio leaves that decision to local government instead of setting a state license. Ohio's own definition of a home contractor calls for at least $250,000 in liability insurance. That is a financial requirement built into the definition, not a test of skill, and it does not depend on whether the county licenses anyone.
What covers this job either way is federal. An air conditioner runs on refrigerant, and any technician who opens that side of the system has to hold an EPA Section 608 certification, no matter where you live in Ohio. That certification is what says someone is qualified to handle the refrigerant in your system, separate from anything a county license would or would not check.
Source: Ohio Legislative Service Commission
- Why is my AC not blowing cold air?
- Most of the time the filter is clogged and starving the system of airflow. Check it first since a dirty filter can freeze the coil, and once that happens you get weak or warm air until it thaws. If the filter is clean, the refrigerant charge could be low, and that's a job for a contractor since it means finding and fixing a leak, not just adding refrigerant.
- Why is my AC leaking water?
- The drain line is probably clogged. Your AC pulls moisture out of the air and that water has to run out through a condensate line, and algae or dirt can block it over time. When that happens the water backs up and drips near the indoor unit instead of draining outside. A frozen coil that's now thawing will cause the same thing, so if the air was blowing weak or warm before you noticed the leak, that's likely the cause.
- Why won't my AC turn on?
- Start with the thermostat. Check that it's set to cool and below the room temperature, and that its batteries aren't dead if it uses any. If the thermostat looks right, check the breaker, since a tripped breaker will shut the whole system down with no warning. Summer storms here bring damaging wind often enough that a breaker trip or a knocked-loose connection is worth ruling out before assuming the unit itself has failed.