Most of the summer
AC Repair
Something is running and not cooling, or not running at all. We handle all makes and models, diagnose it in front of you, and tell you plainly what it needs.
What actually fails on a Gulf Coast system
An air conditioner in Tomball works harder and longer than the same equipment almost anywhere else in the country. Heat and humidity both push against it for months at a time, and that load is what breaks things: a capacitor that's fine in April gives out in July, a coil that's been running near its limit finally ices over, a drain line nobody's looked at in two years finally clogs solid. None of that means the equipment is bad. It means the climate here does the wearing, and repair is mostly a matter of finding which part gave in first.
What a diagnostic visit looks like
A technician checks the obvious things first, power, airflow, the thermostat's own signal, before opening anything up. One customer's furnace went down on a 23 degree morning and the technician talked him through the troubleshooting step by step as he went, found the fault was the thermostat itself, didn't charge for the visit, and told him he could buy the replacement part cheaper somewhere else. That's the same approach on a July afternoon: find the real problem, explain it, and only replace what actually needs replacing.
Steadfast AC, Licensed by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, TACLA166258C. Call (713) 303-4552.
The usual suspects
Six things account for most repair calls in this area.
None of these are exotic. They're the parts that do the most work and take the most heat, and knowing which one is failing is the whole job.
Capacitors
A weak run capacitor is the single most common reason a condenser hums but the fan barely turns, or turns and stalls. It's cheap, it fails on the hottest days, and it's usually the first thing checked.
Contactors
The switch that actually sends power to the outdoor unit. Pitted or burnt contacts mean the system won't start at all, even though the thermostat is calling for cool air.
Condenser fan motors
Once this motor slows down or seizes, the outdoor coil can't shed heat. The system keeps running, the house stays warm, and the compressor takes damage it didn't need to take.
A slow refrigerant leak
Low charge rarely shows up as a leak you can see. It shows up as a house that almost cools, ice on the copper line, or a system that runs longer than it used to for the same result.
A clogged condensate line
Algae and dust build up in the drain line until the float switch does its job and shuts the whole system off. It looks like a dead unit. It's usually a wet vac and a t-fitting.
An iced coil, or the thermostat
Ice on the indoor coil usually traces back to airflow or charge, not the coil itself. And sometimes there's nothing wrong with the AC at all. The thermostat is the actual fault.
Office hours aren't the whole story
Posted hours are Monday to Friday. The phone doesn't stop there.
When one customer's AC quit late on a Sunday night, and again on Father's Day, James was out both times without being asked twice. Another customer had her system fail after hours; a technician came out, got it running, and was back first thing the next morning just to check it held. That's not a marketing line. It's what after-hours emergency service actually means here.
Office hours: Mon-Fri 8am-5pm
Closed Saturday and Sunday, with after-hours emergency service available outside that window. If your system is down and it can't wait, say so when you call.
Not sure a repair is even the right call?
If a system is old enough that this isn't its first repair, it's worth reading what a replacement involves before spending on another one. If it just needs to keep running longer, a maintenance visit now can prevent the call that comes at the worst time. Either way, see the full list of what we handle.