A note – these are 5 offenders when your a/c quits working. It is not an end-all beat-all list, but these are likely culprits. Listen for your hvac company to use these words…

• “It’s turned off.”  Hopefully you won’t actually have a service tech out to your house to tell you this.

Your hvac system has an on/off switch by the unit. It looks like a light switch. In a weak moment you might mindlessly walk out and flip it off thinking it is a light. Simply flip it back on and the system will re-start.

This is not as uncommon as you would think it is.

• “It’s your thermostat”.  Hopefully you won’t actually have a service tech out to your house to tell you this either.

Often a programmable thermostat, which runs on batteries, will shut down your system when the batteries for the thermostat are dead. Been there. Seen that. More than once. I mean who actually changes batteries in their house until something stops working.

Pop the thermostat off the wall and replace batteries. Probably AA sized. Probably needs 3. You can probably only find two. Tough break.

Pop the thermostat back on, the unit should start back up, and all should be right with the world.

• “It’s a capacitor”.  Not a flux-capacitor, but your outside unit has a capacitor in it the size of a Coke can’ish.  When it goes, you will still feel air out your vents, although it will be warm air, but your outside unit will not be running (and thus the motor will be getting warm).  I repeat, your outside unit will NOT be running at all.

This is actually a pretty simple DIY fix if you are handy and can read a wiring diagram. Drawback – you would have to successfully diagnosed this as the problem to begin with, and that takes some skills you may not have. Those are skills I like to call “Warranty Killers” as in when you get into your unit and attempt to do repairs you are often voiding the warranty.

Call a pro. Believe it or not the pro’s carry these on their trucks. With this problem from the time they get to your house to the time you have cool air blowing again will be about 7 minutes. It’s worth it.

• “It’s your compressor”.  Often proceeded by a high squealing sound.  When your compressor goes bad you are through getting cool air until a pro can install a new one.

Once again you may still be feeling air blowing from your vents, but it will not be cool air.

If the compressor is malfunctioning, it won’t be able to turn the refrigerant gas into a liquid – a vital step towards allowing it to cool the air. (Or rather if you will, removing the hot air from your inside air.)

Maybe, possible DIY, but this is a much bigger job than the capacitor is and again you will have to wait for parts. This is why there are HVAC companies. If you don’t have a good one, call me and I will hook you up with one.

• “You are low on refrigerant.”  Ahhh, the dreaded refrigerant leak.  This is often evidenced by the ice on your indoor unit. 

Yes, it does sound backwards, but not enough refrigerant causes ice to form and no cool air to blow.

This can be an absolute pain in the neck as refrigerant leaks can be difficult ($$) to find and to fix.

You cannot do this yourself as you need to be certified to buy whatever kind of refrigerant your system uses and you have to trap the old refrigerant so it does not get released into the atmosphere.

Do NOT use the refrigerant for a car in your home system. Yes – I am looking at you Mr. Steve my next-door neighbor.

One more thing…

If your unit stops producing cool air, the A – number one thing to do is to change your filter. An especially dirty filter could be a cause of everything. By changing the filter, the system could possibly just kick back on again.

Try it.