Your air conditioner quit. Here is what happens next.
Repair for homes across the Oklahoma City and Tulsa metros. We tell you what failed, what it costs, and whether it is worth fixing, before anyone picks up a tool.
No cooling right now?
Call and describe what you are hearing, smelling or seeing. We answer after-hours cooling emergencies too.
(800) 555-0120 Request service- You get an arrival window, not a vague day.
- Diagnosis and a price before anything is opened up.
- If the fix is not worth it, we say so and show you why.
Why is my air conditioner running but not cooling? Most cooling problems come down to one of four things: airflow is restricted, the system has lost refrigerant, an electrical component has failed, or the outdoor unit is not running at all. A technician narrows it down by measuring the temperature difference between the return and supply air, checking static pressure, and taking electrical readings. Which of the four it is changes the cost by an order of magnitude, so it is worth knowing before you authorise anything.
Air conditioning fails in Oklahoma at the worst possible moment, because that is when the system is working hardest. Summers here get brutal: highs run near 98 degrees, dewpoints sit above 70 for weeks at a stretch, and in most homes in this region the ductwork runs through an attic that can reach 130 to 150 degrees on a sunny afternoon. A system that limped through May will find its limit in July.
What follows is what we would tell you on the phone. It will not diagnose your system, and it is not meant to. It should tell you whether to shut the thing off, what you can safely check yourself, and what a competent technician ought to do once they arrive.
Stop the system if any of this is happening
Turn it off first, then call
- You smell burning, or see smoke. Switch the system off at the thermostat and at the breaker, and get out if the smell is strong.
- You hear buzzing, popping or arcing at the outdoor unit. Shut it off at the breaker. Do not open the electrical panel on the unit.
- The breaker has tripped and you have already reset it once. A breaker that trips again is doing its job. Leave it off. Repeatedly resetting it can damage the compressor and is a genuine fire risk.
- There is ice on the indoor coil or on the refrigerant line. Turn cooling off and leave the fan running. Running a frozen system can destroy the compressor, which is the single most expensive part in it.
- Water is dripping through a ceiling below the unit. Switch it off. The condensate drain is blocked and the pan is overflowing.
None of these mean disaster. They simply mean it is time to shut the system off, because running it while something is wrong is what turns a small fix into a big one.
The checks worth doing before you call
Three things account for a real share of cooling problems, and all three are safe to look at yourself. If one of them is the answer, you have saved yourself a service call.
- The thermostatConfirm it is set to cool rather than fan or auto, that the temperature you set is actually below the room temperature, and that a schedule has not quietly turned it down without you noticing. If it runs on batteries, replace them. A dead thermostat looks exactly like a dead air conditioner.
- The filterPull it out and hold it up to a light. If you cannot see light through it, that is very likely your problem, and continuing to run the system that way is how coils freeze. Replace it and give the system an hour.
- The outdoor unitLook, do not touch. Is the fan spinning? Is the coil packed with cottonwood, grass clippings or dryer lint? Is anything growing against it? A unit that cannot breathe cannot reject heat.
That is the end of the list. Beyond this point you are into refrigerant, capacitors and line voltage, and none of that is a homeowner job. Refrigerant work requires certification by law, and the capacitor in your outdoor unit can hold a dangerous charge long after the power is off.
What you are noticing, and what it points at
This table gives you the safe next step and the category the fault probably falls into. It won't hand you a single confident cause, because several different faults produce identical symptoms and the difference between them is a measurement, not a guess.
| What you notice | Safe next step | What it usually falls under | What has to be measured |
|---|---|---|---|
| Air from the vents is warm, airflow feels normal | Check the outdoor unit is running, then call | Refrigerant charge, compressor, or an electrical control | Temperature split, pressures, electrical readings at the contactor |
| Airflow is weak everywhere in the house | Change the filter, open closed registers | Filter restriction, blower, a dirty coil, or duct sizing | Static pressure across the coil and blower, airflow in cubic feet per minute |
| Outdoor fan runs, compressor never starts | Leave it off and call | Start components, capacitor, or the compressor itself | Capacitance, amp draw, winding resistance |
| System runs constantly and never satisfies the thermostat | Note the outdoor temperature when it happens | Undersized or underperforming system, low charge, duct losses | Temperature split at design conditions, a load calculation |
| Short cycles: starts, runs a minute or two, stops | Leave it off and call | Safety control tripping, electrical fault, or an oversized system | Pressure switch and limit history, amp draw, capacity against the actual load |
| Ice on the coil or the copper line | Cooling off, fan on, let it thaw | Restricted airflow or low refrigerant, and those are different problems | Airflow first, then charge. In that order. |
| The house is cool but clammy | Nothing. Book a visit. | Oversized equipment, or a fan speed set too high to dehumidify | Indoor humidity, run times, blower speed against nameplate airflow |
| Some rooms cool, others never do | Check registers and returns are unobstructed | Duct design, leakage, or insulation, more often than the equipment | Room-by-room airflow, duct leakage, a room-by-room load calculation |
| Loud grinding or metallic screech | Shut it off at the breaker | A failing motor bearing or a fan striking something | Physical inspection before it runs again |
| Water pooling near the indoor unit | Switch it off | Blocked condensate drain, failed pump, or a rusted pan | Drain, pan and pump condition, and where the water is actually going |
Categories, not diagnoses. Any row here can have more than one cause, and telling them apart takes instruments.
What cannot be known without looking
We will not tell you over the phone that you are low on refrigerant, and you should be wary of anyone who does. Low refrigerant is not a fault in itself. It is evidence of a leak, and the useful question is where. A system that gets topped up every summer is a system nobody has bothered to fix.
The same goes for the two sentences homeowners hear most often. "Your compressor is shot" and "you need a whole new system" are conclusions, and a conclusion without a measurement behind it is a sales pitch. Ask what was measured and what the reading was. A technician who did the work will be glad to tell you.
What a real diagnostic visit includes
This is the part almost nobody publishes, and it is the most useful thing on this page, because it lets you judge every company you call, including us.
You describe it, we listen
What changed, when, and what you noticed first. Half of a diagnosis is history.
Airflow before refrigerant
Filter, coil, blower, static pressure. Restricted airflow imitates a refrigerant problem, and charging a system to fix an airflow fault leaves you with two faults.
Electrical readings
Voltage, amp draw, capacitor values, contactor and wiring condition. Numbers written down, not eyeballed.
Refrigerant circuit, if the readings send us there
Temperature split, pressures, superheat and subcooling. If charge is low, we look for the leak rather than just adding gas.
Drain and safety controls
Condensate path, float switch, limits. This is where the ceiling stain starts.
The findings, in plain words, with a price
What failed, what it will cost, and the repair option alongside the replacement option every time. You approve before anything is opened up.
Questions worth asking whoever shows up
- What did you measure, and what were the readings?
- If the charge is low, where is the leak and what will it cost to fix that rather than refill it?
- Is this repair likely to hold, or is it buying me one more season?
- What does the repair cost against a replacement, and what would you do in my house?
- Is the price fixed now, or can it change once you are into the job?
- Is the part under any manufacturer warranty I already have?
Last one is worth its own sentence. Many systems carry a five or ten year parts warranty from the manufacturer, and homeowners pay full price for covered parts all the time because nobody looked it up. The model and serial number on the nameplate is all it takes to check.
So do you repair it or replace it?
Honestly, it depends on more than age and repair cost, and the common rule of thumb, multiply the age by the repair price and compare to something, gives false precision to a decision worth thousands. There is a fuller framework on its own page, but the short version is this: repair is usually right when the failure is isolated, the system is otherwise sized and performing correctly, and the refrigerant it uses is still readily available. Replacement starts making sense when the failures are stacking up, when comfort was already poor before it broke, or when a major component has gone on a system that is near the end of a normal service life.
Questions and answers
How much does air conditioning repair cost?
It depends entirely on what failed, and the range is wide enough that any number quoted before a diagnosis is a guess. A capacitor, a contactor or a clogged drain sits at the low end. A blower motor or a control board is in the middle. A compressor or a coil is at the top, and at that point replacement deserves a serious look.
What we will commit to is the shape of it: you get a diagnosis and a fixed price before work starts, and the price does not change once we are into the job unless we find something new and you approve it.
Can you just add refrigerant to get me through the summer?
Sometimes, and we will tell you plainly when that is a reasonable stopgap. But understand what it is. Refrigerant is not consumed the way fuel is. If the level is low, it leaked, and it will leak again. Topping up without finding the leak means paying for the same repair every year and venting refrigerant into the atmosphere in between.
If your system uses R-22, this matters more. It has not been produced or imported in the United States since 2020, so what is left is reclaimed stock and the price reflects that. On an older R-22 system a significant leak is usually the moment to talk about replacement rather than another refill.
My air conditioner is frozen. Should I chip the ice off?
No. You risk puncturing the coil, which turns a repair into a replacement. Turn cooling off at the thermostat and set the fan to on, which moves room air across the coil and thaws it faster than leaving everything off. Expect one to three hours, longer if the ice is heavy.
While it thaws, change the filter. Restricted airflow is one of the two usual causes and it is the one you can fix. If it freezes again after a fresh filter, stop running it and book a visit, because at that point it is likely refrigerant, and running it frozen damages the compressor.
Do you charge a diagnostic fee?
Yes, and we would be suspicious of anyone who does not. Diagnosis is skilled work with instruments, and "free" diagnosis is usually recovered somewhere less visible, most often by pricing the repair high or by finding a reason you need a new system.
You are told the fee before we come out, not after. It covers a full diagnosis and a written finding you can take to anyone, whether or not you have the work done with us.
How quickly can somebody get here?
Honestly, it depends on how many cooling emergencies are already ahead of you, and during a run of high nineties there are a lot of them. Anyone who promises you a fixed response time in the middle of a heat wave is either not busy or not telling you the truth.
What you get regardless is a real arrival window rather than being told someone will come by at some point, and a phone call if that window slips.
We treat heating and cooling emergencies as urgent, even outside normal hours. If you have someone in the house who is elderly, very young, or has a medical condition affected by heat, say so when you call and it changes where you sit in the order.
Should I repair a system that is fifteen years old?
Maybe. Fifteen is within normal service life for cooling equipment, and a fifteen-year-old system with one failed part and no history of trouble is often worth fixing. A fifteen-year-old system on its fourth repair, with rooms that never cooled properly and a refrigerant that is expensive to buy, is a different conversation.
Age on its own is the weakest of the nine factors that matter, which is exactly why it is the one used to sell replacements. Work through the rest before you decide.
Other things we do
Tell us what it is doing.
Describe the symptom and we will tell you whether it needs someone today or whether it can wait until morning.
(800) 555-0120