AC Repair in Columbia, MO
Air conditioners here run from May through September. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Boone County will get in touch.
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Five months of heat, and storms in between
Columbia asks a lot of an air conditioner. From May through September, with afternoons averaging 86°F, the system runs long hours to keep a house comfortable. That kind of runtime wears on the compressor and the fan motor, the parts that carry the load hour after hour. When one of them starts to fail, you notice the air coming out warmer than it should, or the unit running longer to reach the same temperature.
Boone County has also logged 19 hail events and 54 damaging wind events over the past ten years, with hail up to 2.75 inches. Hail that size can dent or puncture the thin fins on the outdoor coil, and wind can knock loose the electrical connections or rock the unit on its pad. After a storm, a system that worked fine the day before may struggle to cool at all.
- 5 months
- May through September, your air conditioner is on duty
- 86°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 19 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 54 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 Boone County, so the repair decision comes down to the unit's condition.
Estimates for a typical Boone County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, Missouri 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.
- Why is my AC not blowing cold air?
- Most of the time the filter is clogged and starving the system of airflow, or the refrigerant level is low from a leak. A dirty filter makes the evaporator coil so cold it ices over, and once that happens the air coming out of your vents turns warm even though the system is running. Low refrigerant does the same thing for a different reason and needs a contractor to find the leak and fix it, since refrigerant does not get used up on its own. Check the filter first. If it is clean and you still get warm air, the problem is inside the system.
- Why is my AC leaking water?
- Water around your indoor unit almost always means the condensate drain line is clogged. As your AC pulls moisture out of the air over five months of Columbia summers, that water is supposed to run out through the drain line, and algae or dirt can block it over time. When that happens, water backs up and drips out of the unit or the drain pan instead. A clogged filter can also cause this by freezing the coil, which then drips as it thaws. A contractor can clear the line and check whether ice was part of the problem.
- Why won't my AC turn on?
- Start with your thermostat and breaker before assuming the worst. Check that the thermostat is set to cool and below the room temperature, and that its batteries are not dead. Then check the breaker panel, since a tripped breaker will keep the system from powering on at all. If both of those look fine and the unit still will not start, the problem is likely electrical inside the unit itself, and a contractor will need to diagnose it.