AC Maintenance in Southaven, MS
Air conditioners here run from May through September, so April is the time for a tune-up. Tell us about your system, and a licensed contractor who covers DeSoto County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Five months of hard running takes a toll
Your air conditioner works from May through September here, and on the afternoons that hit 90°F it runs long and often. That kind of stretch wears on the parts that keep it going, the ones a tune-up is built to catch early.
DeSoto County has also seen 30 hail events and 50 damaging wind events over the past ten years. A storm like that can dent the outdoor unit's fins or knock it out of alignment without you noticing right away. A service visit checks the condenser for that kind of damage along with the wear that five months of summer puts on the system.
- 5 months
- May through September, your air conditioner is on duty
- 90°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 30 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 50 wind events
- in ten years, and wind drives debris into outdoor units
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
Book your AC tune-up in April, before homes here start needing cooling in May.
- Jan
- Feb
- Mar
- Apr
- May
- Jun
- Jul
- Aug
- Sep
- Oct
- Nov
- Dec
A tune-up checks the refrigerant charge, cleans the coils, tests the capacitor and tightens the electrical connections.
Mississippi requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The license is held by the contractor, not issued job by job, so the same license that qualifies a company to install a system also qualifies it to maintain one. Mississippi's Board of Contractors is the one testing and keeping record of that.
For this job, the part that matters most is the refrigerant. Any technician who opens that side of your air conditioner, to check the charge or recover refrigerant, has to hold EPA Section 608 certification, and that rule applies in every state regardless of what Mississippi requires on top of it.
Source: Mississippi State Board of Contractors
- What does AC maintenance include?
- A technician checks refrigerant charge, tests the capacitor and contactor, cleans the condenser coil, and looks over the electrical connections. They also check the blower and the indoor coil if it's accessible, and check that the system is pulling down temperature the way it should. Anyone working on the refrigerant side has to hold an EPA Section 608 certification, since that's federal law everywhere. A good visit ends with the technician telling you what they found, not just that they were there.
- How often does an air conditioner need maintenance?
- Once a year is enough for most systems, done before the season it works hardest. In Southaven that means getting it checked before May, since cooling runs from May through September and summer afternoons average 90°F. A unit that sits idle for months and then gets asked to run hard right away is where small problems show up as breakdowns.
- Is AC maintenance worth it?
- Yes, because most of what fails in an air conditioner gives some warning first, a weak capacitor, a coil losing airflow, a refrigerant level drifting low. Maintenance catches those while they're still cheap fixes instead of a system going down in the middle of a run of 90 degree afternoons. Southaven also sees real storms, 30 hail events and 50 damaging wind events over the last ten years, so a yearly check is also a chance to catch anything a storm did to the outdoor unit before it turns into a bigger problem.