AC Repair in Lexington, SC
Air conditioners here run from May through September. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Lexington County will get in touch.
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It takes about a minute.
Five months of Lexington heat wears an AC down fast
From May through September your air conditioner is running most days, and on the afternoons that hit 91°F it runs close to nonstop. That kind of stretch puts real hours on the compressor and the fan motor, the two parts doing the actual work of moving heat out of your house. When one of them starts to go, you feel it as warm air out of the vents or a system that just won't keep up on the hottest afternoons.
Lexington County also sees its share of hail and wind, 74 hail events and 325 damaging wind events over the last ten years, with hail up to 1.75 inches. The outdoor unit sits outside for all of it, and a hard enough storm can bend the fins on the coil or damage the fan on top. If your AC started acting up after a storm came through, that is where to look.
- 5 months
- May through September, your air conditioner is on duty
- 91°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 74 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 325 wind events
- in ten years, and wind drives debris into outdoor units
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new air conditioner would cut about $60 a year off cooling for a typical Lexington County home.
Estimates for a typical Lexington County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, South Carolina 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 often the filter is clogged and starving the system of airflow, or the refrigerant level is low from a leak. A dirty filter makes the coil work harder until it freezes over, and once that happens you get weak air instead of cold air even though the unit is running. Low refrigerant almost always means a leak somewhere in the line, not the system just using it up, so it needs a contractor to find and seal it. With summer afternoons here running near 91°F, a system that's low on refrigerant or short on airflow will struggle to keep up.
- Why is my AC leaking water?
- Water around your indoor unit usually means the condensate drain line is clogged. Your AC pulls a lot of moisture out of the air over a long cooling season, and that water is supposed to run out through the drain line to the outside. Algae and dirt build up in that line over time and block it, so the water backs up and drips inside instead. A clogged drain line is a common repair and a contractor can clear it.
- Why won't my AC turn on?
- Check your thermostat batteries and your breaker panel first, since both are common reasons a system won't start and both are easy to check yourself. If the thermostat has power and the breaker hasn't tripped, the problem is likely in the unit itself, something like a failed capacitor or a bad contactor, and that calls for a contractor to diagnose. Storms are part of life here, with 325 damaging wind events recorded over the last ten years, so it's also worth checking that outdoor power hasn't been knocked out after a bad one.