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Cooling
A system tuned to sea-level numbers will be wrong here. We check superheat and subcool. We do not “add a can” because the house feels warm at four in the afternoon.
It hums, and the fan is still
Capacitors and contactors. The swollen capacitor is the whole story more often than a dead compressor.
It runs, and the air is warm
Low charge, a dirty evaporator, or a blower that cannot move air through a clogged filter. We separate those before we touch refrigerant.
The outdoor unit is a cottonwood
June along the canal and the creeks. A rinse is maintenance. If the coil is clean and the house is still hot, something else failed.
It freezes into a block of ice
Airflow first, charge second. Running it to “thaw the ice” is how a simple call becomes a compressor.
On a no-cool day the call is routed with no-heat, ahead of tune-ups. You get a reading, not a shrug: supply temperature, outdoor temperature, and whether the charge is actually the problem.
The same sample diagnostic fee as heating: $89 during shop hours, waived if the repair goes ahead that visit. Refrigerant, when it is actually required, is priced by the pound on the invoice, not folded into a mystery fee.