AC Repair in Myrtle Beach, SC
Air conditioners here run from May through September. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Horry County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Five months of Myrtle Beach heat wears an AC down fast
Your air conditioner runs from May through September here, and on a lot of those afternoons it's fighting to keep up with 89°F outside. That kind of stretch keeps the compressor working hard day after day, and it's usually the compressor or the capacitor that starts to fail after enough summers like this. You notice it as a system that runs longer than it used to, or one that shuts off on its own on the hottest afternoons.
Horry County also sees its share of hail and wind, 49 hail events and 111 damaging wind events over the last ten years. A hailstone that size can bend the fins on your outdoor unit or damage the fan, and that shows up as weak airflow or a system that struggles to cool the house even when it's running.
- 5 months
- May through September, your air conditioner is on duty
- 89°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 49 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 111 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 Horry County home.
Estimates for a typical Horry 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?
- The most common cause is a dirty air filter choking off airflow across the coil. When that happens the coil can ice up, and once it does, the air coming through the vents turns warm or stops moving much at all. Low refrigerant from a leak causes the same thing. Check the filter first, since that's the one part you can rule out yourself before a contractor looks at the rest.
- Why is my AC leaking water?
- Water around your AC usually means the condensate drain line is clogged. Algae and dirt build up inside that line over a cooling season and block the water from draining outside, so it backs up and spills near the indoor unit instead. A dirty air filter can also cause this by freezing the coil, which then drips as it thaws. Either way, the line needs to be cleared or the filter changed before it happens again.
- Why won't my AC turn on?
- Start with the thermostat batteries and the breaker before assuming the worst. A tripped breaker or dead thermostat batteries will stop the whole system cold and both are easy to check. If the breaker keeps tripping once you reset it, that points to an electrical problem inside the unit, and with 111 damaging wind events recorded here over the past ten years, outdoor units do sometimes take hits to their wiring or the disconnect box that need a contractor to sort out.