AC Repair in Buffalo, NY
Air conditioners here run from July through August. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Erie County will get in touch.
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Buffalo air conditioners work a short, hard season
Your air conditioner only earns its keep from July through August here. That is two months to do a year's worth of work, and most of it happens on afternoons pushing past that 78°F average. A unit that sits idle the other ten months doesn't get eased into the season. It gets asked to run hard right away.
Erie County has also logged 241 damaging wind events and 31 hail storms over the past ten years, with hail up to 2 inches. Wind drives debris into the outdoor unit and can bend the fins that let it shed heat. Hail that size can dent the cabinet or damage the coil fins directly. If your AC is blowing warm air or struggling to keep up on the hot afternoons, a look at the outdoor unit is a good place to start.
- 2 months
- July through August, your air conditioner is on duty
- 78°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 31 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 241 wind events
- in ten years, and wind drives debris into outdoor units
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new air conditioner would save little on running costs in Erie County, so the repair decision comes down to the unit's condition.
Estimates for a typical Erie County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, New York 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 of the time the filter is clogged and starving the system of airflow, so check that first before anything else. A dirty filter forces the coil to run colder than it should, and it can ice over, which cuts cooling even further. Low refrigerant from a leak is another common cause, and that one needs a contractor, since refrigerant has to be recovered and the leak found and sealed. If the outdoor unit isn't running at all while the indoor fan blows warm air, that points to the compressor or a electrical problem outside.
- Why is my AC leaking water?
- The condensate drain line is probably clogged. Your AC pulls a lot of moisture out of the air on a summer afternoon, and that water is supposed to run out through a drain line to the outside. Algae and dust build up in that line over a season and block it, so the water backs up and drips inside instead. A frozen coil that's now thawing will do the same thing, so if the system was blowing warm air before you saw water, that's likely the real cause.
- Why won't my AC turn on?
- Start with the thermostat. Check that it's set to cool and set below the room temperature, and if it runs on batteries, try fresh ones. If the thermostat looks fine, check your breaker panel, since a tripped breaker will keep the whole system dead. Buffalo gets a fair number of damaging wind events each year, and a power blip during one of those can trip a breaker without you noticing. If the breaker is fine and the system still won't start, the problem is likely electrical inside the unit, and that calls for a contractor to check it safely.