AC Repair in Staten Island, NY
Air conditioners here run from June through September. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Richmond County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Four months of hard running, every year
Your air conditioner in Staten Island works from June through September, and on the afternoons that hit 84°F it runs long stretches to keep up. That kind of steady demand wears on the parts that keep the system cycling, especially the capacitor and the compressor itself. When one of those starts to go, you notice the unit struggling to start, or running but not cooling like it did last summer.
Storms add their own wear. Richmond County has seen wind strong enough to damage property 36 times in the last ten years, and hail four times, with one stone as large as 1.75 inches. Wind can knock debris into the outdoor unit's fins and coil, and hail can dent them, so if your system has been through a bad storm, it is worth having it looked at even if it still seems to run.
- 4 months
- June through September, your air conditioner is on duty
- 84°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 4 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 36 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 Richmond County home.
Estimates for a typical Richmond 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 often the filter is clogged and starving the system of airflow, or the refrigerant level is low from a leak. A dirty outdoor coil can cause the same thing, since it stops the unit from shedding heat. Check the filter first, since that's the one thing you can rule out yourself. If it's clean and you're still getting warm air, the system needs a contractor to check refrigerant levels and look for a leak.
- Why is my AC leaking water?
- The 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 condensate line, but algae and dirt build up inside that line over time and block it. When it backs up, the water finds another way out, often through the ceiling below an attic unit or around the indoor unit itself. A frozen coil that's now thawing can cause the same kind of water. Either way, a contractor can clear the line or find out why the coil froze.
- Why won't my AC turn on?
- Start with the thermostat, check that it's set to cool and the temperature is below the room's actual temperature, and swap the batteries if it has a blank screen. If the thermostat looks fine, check the breaker, since a tripped breaker will keep the whole system dead. Staten Island has seen 36 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and storms like that can trip breakers or damage the outdoor unit's power connection. If the breaker is fine and it still won't start, the capacitor or the contactor inside the outdoor unit may have failed, and that's a job for a contractor to test and replace.