Cooling · Chicago & the western suburbs
The AC is running.
The house is still hot.
Central air that will not cool, weak airflow, a frozen coil, an outdoor unit that hums and never starts, water on the floor by the furnace, or a system that is simply done. Tell us what it is doing and we will tell you what it usually means.
Symptoms
If the house is doing any of this, call.
Homeowners describe the same handful of things every July. None of it is too small to call about, and most of it gets worse the longer the system runs through it.
- It runs and runs and never gets cold, even overnight.
- Warm air out of the vents while the outdoor unit is clearly running.
- Weak airflow. You can barely feel anything at the registers.
- Ice on the copper line at the outdoor unit or on the indoor coil.
- The outdoor unit hums but the fan does not spin. Nudging the blade to start it is a symptom, not a fix.
- Nothing happens outside at all when the thermostat calls for cooling.
- Rattling, grinding, or screeching from the condenser in the yard.
- Water on the basement floor near the furnace in the middle of summer.
- Short cycling. On for two minutes, off, on again, all afternoon.
- The thermostat is blank or set correctly and the system ignores it.
- The second floor is ten degrees warmer than the first no matter the setting.
- The summer bill jumped and nothing about how you use the house changed.
Set the thermostat to off for cooling and leave the fan on so the coil can thaw instead of packing more ice on top of it. Running a frozen system pushes liquid refrigerant back toward the compressor, and that is the part you do not want to lose. Mention the ice when you call.
What it usually turns out to be
Most no-cool calls are one of these.
Air conditioning is airflow, refrigerant, and electricity. When one of those is wrong, the house gets warm.
Capacitor and contactor failures
The capacitor gives the compressor and the fan motor the shove they need to start, so a weak one leaves you with a hum and no spin. The contactor is the switch feeding the unit power, and its points burn over time. Small parts, and the most common no-cool call in July.
Frozen evaporator coil
Ice means the coil is running colder than it should, and that is almost always airflow or charge: a filter nobody has changed since March, a closed return, a failing blower, or a low charge. We thaw it, then find the cause.
The condenser will not start
Capacitor, contactor, fan motor, the breaker, the disconnect on the wall outside, a blown control board fuse, a float switch tripped by a full drain pan, or a broken thermostat wire. We check the cheap causes first.
Clogged drain line
Your AC pulls gallons of water out of humid air, and that water leaves through a small drain line. Algae plugs it, the pan fills, and water ends up on the floor next to the furnace. Some systems shut off on a safety switch instead.
Noisy outdoor unit
A rattle is often a loose panel, a bent fan blade, or something that fell into the cabinet. Screeching points at a motor bearing. A hard clunk at startup is worth looking at right away, because that is usually the compressor.
Thermostat and controls
Not every no-cool call is the equipment. Dead batteries, a loose wire behind the thermostat, a blown low voltage fuse, or a smart thermostat installed on a system it was never configured for.
Refrigerant
Refrigerant is not something you top off every year.
A sealed system does not consume refrigerant the way an engine consumes oil. The same charge should stay in there for the life of the equipment. So if your system is low, it is low for one reason: it is leaking. A corroded coil, a fitting, a valve, or a spot where the line set has been rubbing.
Adding refrigerant to a leaking system is a temporary fix, and we will say that out loud. It cools again for a few weeks, sometimes a season, and then you are back to warm air and paying for another charge. Refrigerant is also the most expensive thing in the system to keep replacing.
The honest version is to find the leak first: gauges on the system, read the pressures, and locate the point of loss. Then you get real options, repair the leak and recharge, or put that money toward equipment that is not leaking. A system slowly losing charge shows up on your bill before it shows up as warm air, because it runs longer to move the same heat.
If someone adds refrigerant without telling you where the old charge went, ask. A recharge with no leak search is a service call you are going to make again.
Ductless mini splits
For the rooms central air never reaches.
A mini split is an outdoor unit connected to one or more indoor heads by a small line set. No ductwork, one small hole through the wall, each head controlled on its own, and most of them heat as well as cool.
Where they earn their keep
- Older Chicago and Oak Park houses with radiators and no ductwork at all.
- Finished attics and second floors that stay hot no matter what the thermostat says.
- Additions, sunrooms, and porches the original ducts were never sized for.
- Garages and home offices you want cooled without running the whole house.
- The one room that is always the fight, when opening walls for duct makes no sense.
What matters on the install
Head placement, line set routing, and where the condensate goes decide whether you still like the system in year three. A head hung where the drain has to fight gravity will annoy you every summer.
A mini split needs its own circuit, and we handle that in house instead of sending you to find an electrician. Sizing matters here too. An oversized head in a small bedroom clicks on and off all evening and leaves the room damp.
Replacement
Sized to your actual house, not to the sticker on the old one.
When a system is done, the decision that matters most is not the brand. It is the size, and getting it right is arithmetic about your specific house.
The lazy method is to read the tonnage off the old equipment and order the same thing, or guess from square footage. That only works if the last install was right, and it ignores new windows, added insulation, a finished basement, or an addition.
The real method is a load calculation. In plain words, we measure the house and add up where heat comes in: square footage room by room, ceiling heights, how many windows and which way they face, shade, insulation in the walls and attic, how leaky the house is, and how the ducts run. That gives a number for the house in front of us, and we pick equipment that matches it.
Why bigger is not better
Homeowners assume a larger system is a safety margin. It works the other way. Cooling the air is only half of what an air conditioner does. The other half is pulling humidity out, and that takes run time.
An oversized system drops the air temperature fast, satisfies the thermostat in a few minutes, and shuts off before it has removed much moisture. You get a house that reads 72 degrees and still feels clammy, so you set it lower and it still feels wrong.
Short cycling costs you elsewhere. The heaviest draw of any cycle is the startup, so a system that starts constantly uses more power to do less work, and the starting wears the compressor and contactor faster. A right sized system runs longer and steadier. It dries the air, evens out the gap between floors, and stays quieter doing it.
What we look at before quoting a replacement
- The house room by room, not just the total square footage.
- Window count, size, and which way each side of the house faces.
- Attic and wall insulation, and how leaky the house is.
- Duct size and layout, including returns, which are undersized in a lot of older homes.
- Whether the indoor blower and coil match the new outdoor unit, because a mismatched pair never performs like the label says.
- The electrical feed, breaker, and outdoor disconnect, which we can correct ourselves.
- Where the condensate drains, and whether that path holds up.
Where we work
Cooling service across Chicago and the western suburbs
Common questions
Before you call
My AC runs all day and the house still is not cold. What causes that?
Usually low refrigerant from a leak, a dirty condenser coil that cannot dump heat, a restricted filter choking airflow, or a system too small for the house on a 95 degree day. They look identical from the thermostat and completely different once gauges and temperature readings go on the system.
Can I just have refrigerant added every summer?
You can, and plenty of people do, but understand what you are buying. Refrigerant does not get used up, so a low system is a leaking system. Adding more without finding the leak is a temporary fix you will be repeating.
There is ice on my AC line. Can I keep running it until someone gets here?
No. Turn cooling off at the thermostat and leave the fan running so the coil can thaw. Running an iced up system risks sending liquid refrigerant to the compressor, which turns a repair into a replacement.
There is water on the floor by my furnace and it is July. Is that the AC?
Almost certainly. The indoor coil sits in or on the furnace and pulls a lot of water out of humid air, and that water drains through a line that clogs. When it backs up it overflows onto the floor and the furnace cabinet, which is how an ignored clog turns into rust later.
Is it worth repairing an older system or should I replace it?
It depends on the age, what failed, and what the repair costs against a replacement. A capacitor on a ten year old unit is an easy yes. A leaking coil or a failed compressor on a tired system is a different conversation. We will tell you when the repair is the smarter money, including when that means we sell you less.
How soon can someone get out here?
Call and ask how soon we can be out. It depends on the day and the heat, because when Chicago hits a stretch of 90 degree afternoons every cooling company in the area is busy. You will get an honest window.
There is a $125 service charge to come out. That pays for the trip and the diagnosis, which means finding what is actually wrong and telling you what it costs to fix. It is a separate charge and is not credited toward the repair. Once you have the repair price, nothing happens until you approve it.
Warm air, weak airflow, or a unit that will not start.
Describe what the system is doing. You will get a real answer about what it probably is and how soon someone can be out.