AC Repair in Picayune, MS
Air conditioners here run from May through October. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Pearl River County will get in touch.
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Six months of Mississippi heat wears on your AC
Your air conditioner runs from May through October here, with summer afternoons averaging 91°F. That is six straight months of the compressor cycling on and off most of the day to keep up. The system does not get much of a break to recover before the next hot stretch starts.
Pearl River County has also logged 34 damaging wind events and 13 hail storms over the past ten years, with hail up to 2 inches. The outdoor unit sits outside through all of it. Wind-blown debris and hail can bend the condenser fins or damage the fan, and either one shows up as an air conditioner that runs but no longer cools the house like it should.
- 6 months
- May through October, your air conditioner is on duty
- 91°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 13 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 34 wind events
- in ten years, and wind drives debris into outdoor units
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new air conditioner would cut about $70 a year off cooling for a typical Pearl River County home.
Estimates for a typical Pearl River County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, Mississippi 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.
Mississippi requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The state board tests contractors before it licenses them, and it keeps a record of who holds one. That license belongs to the contractor, not to any single job, so the same license that qualifies someone to install a system is what qualifies them to repair yours.
For this repair, the license is what stands behind the person working on your air conditioner. If the job involves opening the refrigerant side of the system, which most compressor and coil repairs do, the technician also has to hold EPA Section 608 certification. That one comes from the federal government, not the state, and it applies to every technician in the country who handles refrigerant.
Source: Mississippi State Board of Contractors
- Why is my AC not blowing cold air?
- Most often the filter is clogged and starving the system of airflow, or the refrigerant charge is low. A dirty filter chokes the air moving across the evaporator coil until it can't pull heat out of your home. Low refrigerant usually means a leak somewhere in the line, and that needs a licensed contractor with EPA 608 certification to find and fix, since it means opening the refrigerant side of the system. Sometimes the outdoor unit itself is the problem, especially after a hard wind, since debris or a damaged fin can block airflow across the condenser.
- Why is my AC leaking water?
- The drain line is probably clogged. Your AC pulls moisture out of the air and that water is supposed to run out through a condensate drain, but algae and debris build up in that line over a cooling season that runs May through October here and can block it. When the line backs up, water has nowhere to go but out of the unit or down through the ceiling if the air handler sits in an attic. A frozen evaporator coil that then thaws can cause the same kind of water problem, so the fix depends on which one it is.
- Why won't my AC turn on?
- Start with the thermostat and the breaker. A dead thermostat battery or a tripped breaker will keep the whole system from starting, and both are worth checking before anything else. If those are fine, the capacitor that starts the compressor and fan motors may have failed, which is a common reason a unit goes completely silent. After a storm, it's also worth checking that a breaker didn't trip from a power surge, since this area sees damaging wind often enough to matter. A contractor can test the electrical components and tell you which one failed.