Service
Air Conditioning Repair in Ferndale, MI
Systems that run without cooling, ice on the lines, and the July failures that cannot wait.
Air conditioning almost never fails in May. It fails on the first genuinely hot week, which is when every shop in the county is booked. The emergency line covers no-cooling calls the same way it covers no-heat.
What this covers
- Systems that run continuously without cooling the house
- Frozen evaporator coils and iced refrigerant lines
- Refrigerant leak diagnosis, including on older R-22 systems
- Capacitor, contactor, and condenser fan motor failures
- Condensate drain blockages and the water damage they cause
- Compressor diagnosis, and a straight answer about whether it is worth it
Reading the symptoms before you call
- The unit runs but the air is not cold: low refrigerant, a frozen coil, or a compressor that is not engaging.
- Ice on the copper line outside: stop the system and switch the fan to on. Ice means airflow or charge trouble, and running it frozen risks the compressor.
- The outdoor unit hums but the fan does not spin: very often a failed run capacitor, which is one of the cheaper faults there is.
- It cools, but not past a certain point on hot days: frequently a sizing or duct-leakage issue rather than a broken component.
- Water around the indoor unit: a blocked condensate drain, which is worth dealing with before it reaches drywall.
About refrigerant, and about older systems
Refrigerant is not consumed. A sealed system does not use it up the way an engine uses oil, so a system that is low on charge has a leak somewhere. Topping it up without finding the leak means paying for the same refrigerant again next summer, and it means venting it into the atmosphere in the meantime. Finding the leak is the actual repair.
This matters more if your system is old enough to run R-22, which was phased out of production and has become expensive. On an R-22 system with a significant leak, the cost of recharging can start to look like a meaningful step toward replacement. That is a numbers conversation, and it should be had with the actual numbers rather than as a sales pitch.
A frozen coil is worth understanding too, because the instinct is to keep running the system harder. Ice forms when there is not enough warm air moving across the coil or not enough refrigerant in it. Either way, running it while it is frozen sends liquid refrigerant back to the compressor, and compressors are the expensive part. Turn the cooling off, leave the fan running, and let it thaw before anyone looks at it.
Ferndale, Royal Oak, Berkley, Oak Park, Madison Heights, and the rest of the south end of Oakland County. The shop has been at the same Nine Mile address for three generations, which is the short answer to how far we travel.
AC repair: common questions
Why is my AC running but not cooling?
The three usual causes are a refrigerant charge that has dropped because of a leak, an evaporator coil that has frozen over, and a compressor that is not starting. A dirty filter sits behind more of these than people expect, because restricted airflow is what freezes a coil in the first place. Checking the filter costs nothing and is worth doing before you call.
There is ice on my air conditioner. What should I do?
Switch the cooling off at the thermostat but leave the fan set to on. That moves room-temperature air across the coil and thaws it without running the compressor against ice. Then check the filter. Running a frozen system risks sending liquid refrigerant back to the compressor, which turns a modest repair into an expensive one.
How long does an air conditioner last?
Twelve to fifteen years is typical in this climate, and units that get an annual coil cleaning tend toward the upper end. Michigan is comparatively easy on condensers because the cooling season is short, so a well-maintained system here often outlasts the same unit installed further south.
My system uses R-22. Does that mean I have to replace it?
Not on its own. If the system is sealed and holding its charge, there is no reason to replace a working unit. The problem arrives when it develops a leak, because R-22 is no longer produced and the price reflects that. At that point the cost of a recharge, which will need repeating if the leak is not found, has to be weighed against replacement.
Do you take no-cooling calls after hours?
Yes. The 24-hour emergency line covers no-cooling as well as no-heat.