AC Repair in Queens, NY
Air conditioners here run from June through September. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Queens County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Four months of hard running in Queens heat
Your air conditioner works June through September here, with summer afternoons averaging 83°F. That is the stretch where it runs longest and hardest, cycling on and off all afternoon to keep up.
That kind of steady demand wears on the compressor and the capacitor that helps start it. When the capacitor weakens, the unit hums but the fan will not turn, or it shuts off a few minutes after it starts. Queens has also seen 116 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and wind that strong can knock an outdoor unit out of alignment or drive debris into the coil, so it is worth a look after a bad storm.
- 4 months
- June through September, your air conditioner is on duty
- 83°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 3 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 116 wind events
- in ten years, and wind drives debris into outdoor units
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new air conditioner would cut about $30 a year off cooling for a typical Queens County home.
Estimates for a typical Queens 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, or the refrigerant is low from a leak somewhere in the line. A dirty filter forces the coil to work in cold, thin air until it freezes over, and once that happens you get weak air instead of cold air. If the filter looks fine, the problem is more likely refrigerant or the compressor, and that calls for a contractor to check the pressures.
- Why is my AC leaking water?
- The condensate drain line is probably clogged. Your AC pulls moisture out of the air as it cools, and that water is supposed to run out through a drain line to the outside. Algae and dust build up inside that line over a season of steady use, and once it blocks, the water backs up and drips inside instead. A frozen coil that then melts will do the same thing, so if you saw ice on the lines before the leak, that is the cause instead.
- Why won't my AC turn on?
- Start with the thermostat and the breaker before assuming the worst. Check that the thermostat is set to cool and below the room temperature, and check the breaker panel for a tripped switch, since AC units draw enough power that a breaker can trip on a hot day. If both look fine and it still will not start, the capacitor or the contactor inside the outdoor unit has likely failed, and that is a job for a contractor to test and replace.