AC Repair in Warwick, RI
Air conditioners here run from July through August. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Kent County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Two months of heat, then long stretches of nothing
Warwick only asks your air conditioner to run from July through August. Summer afternoons average 80°F, which is real work but not extreme heat, so the unit is built to handle it without much strain.
The bigger issue is what happens the other ten months. A system that sits idle that long can seize up or develop a refrigerant leak nobody notices until the first hot day, when you turn it on and get warm air or no air at all. Kent County has also logged 86 damaging wind events over the past ten years and a handful of hailstorms, one dropping stones over an inch across. Wind can knock the outdoor unit's cabinet loose or bend the fan around it, and hail can dent the coil fins that let it release heat. If your air conditioner is running but not cooling like it used to, or making noise it didn't make last summer, something got knocked out of shape while it sat unused.
- 2 months
- July through August, your air conditioner is on duty
- 80°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 5 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 86 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 Kent County, so the repair decision comes down to the unit's condition.
Estimates for a typical Kent County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, Rhode Island 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.
Rhode Island requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The license Rhode Island issues belongs to the contractor, not to any single job. It stands behind every repair that contractor takes on, this one included.
Repairing an air conditioner means opening the refrigerant side of the system in most cases. Federal law requires whoever does that to hold EPA Section 608 certification, in every state, on top of whatever the state itself requires. In Rhode Island, the contractor doing this work is expected to carry both.
Source: Rhode Island General Assembly
- 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 level is low from a leak somewhere in the line. A dirty outdoor coil can do the same thing by keeping the system from shedding heat properly. If the air coming out is warm rather than weak, check the thermostat setting and the breaker first, since those cost nothing to rule out. Anything involving the refrigerant itself needs a technician with EPA 608 certification to open that side of the system legally.
- Why is my AC leaking water?
- The drain line that carries condensation away from the indoor coil is probably clogged or disconnected. That line grows algae and gunk over time just like any drain, and once it backs up the water has to go somewhere, usually down through the unit and onto your floor or ceiling below. A frozen coil that then thaws can cause the same kind of puddle. Either way it points to something a contractor needs to clear or repair, not something to leave alone since water damage adds up.
- Why won't my AC turn on?
- Start with the thermostat batteries and the breaker panel, since both are common causes and both are easy to check yourself. If those are fine, the capacitor that starts the compressor may have failed, or a safety switch is tripped somewhere in the system. Rhode Island requires the contractor doing this repair to hold a state HVAC license, and if the fix involves the refrigerant side, the technician also needs EPA 608 certification.