Air Conditioning Repair in the Triangle

Yes, with limits worth understanding. R-22 has not been produced since 2020, so every pound now comes from reclaimed stock and costs several times what R-410A does. We will recharge an R-22 system, but if it has a leak it will leak again, and on an older unit the arithmetic usually favours replacement within a season or two. We will tell you which situation you are in rather than sell you the same recharge every summer.

A repair is for a system that has stopped working properly, and it starts with a diagnostic visit. A tune-up is scheduled maintenance on a system that is still working, and it is flat-priced with no diagnostic fee. If your air conditioning has already failed, book the repair. Booking a tune-up on a failed system only delays the actual fix by a visit.

That is usually normal. A heat pump delivers air at around 90 to 100F, which is warmer than the room but cooler than your hand, so it feels cool if you are used to a gas furnace at around 130F. As long as the house is holding its temperature, nothing is wrong. If the house is not holding temperature, or the outdoor unit is encased in ice that never clears, that is a fault and worth a call.

No. We do not offer it and we rarely recommend it. For most homes there is no good evidence it improves air quality or system performance, and it is widely oversold. If you have a specific contamination problem, after a fire or a rodent infestation for example, that is a remediation specialist rather than us. What we do offer is duct sealing, which measurably reduces the conditioned air you lose into a loft.

No. Ductwork is HVAC but it is not emergency-eligible, and we will not dispatch a crew overnight for it. A duct problem makes a house uncomfortable; it does not leave you with no cooling in a heatwave or no heat in a freeze, which is what emergency cover exists for. If you have no heating or cooling at all, that is a repair and it is covered around the clock.

Eight to fifteen years for most equipment in this climate, and Triangle systems land at the lower end of national figures because they run most of the year. A well-maintained heat pump reaching twelve years has done well. What shortens it most is being oversized, which makes the system cycle on and off rather than run steadily, and skipping maintenance so the coils stay dirty.

Usually not, and frequently the correctly sized replacement is smaller. Oversizing is the most common fault we find in Triangle homes: the system cools the air quickly, satisfies the thermostat, and shuts off before it has removed the humidity, leaving a house that is cold and clammy. We run a Manual J load calculation on every replacement rather than matching what was there, and we will show you the numbers.

That is a humidity problem rather than a cooling problem, and it is the most common comfort complaint in the Triangle. Air conditioning removes moisture as a side effect of running, so on a mild humid day when the system barely runs, the moisture stays. A whole-home dehumidifier controls humidity independently of whether the AC is running, and it is the single most effective comfort improvement available on most Triangle homes.

Every one to three months for a standard one-inch filter, and every six to twelve months for a four or five inch media filter. In a house with pets or during heavy pollen weeks, closer to monthly. A blocked filter starves the system of airflow, which on a cooling system can freeze the coil and looks exactly like a refrigerant fault, so it is worth checking before you call anyone.

Late March through May for cooling, and September through October for heating. Two reasons: the dispatch board is not yet full of emergency no-cooling or no-heat calls, and a fault found in April is a scheduled repair rather than a miserable July evening. If you are on a maintenance plan we text you when a visit is due rather than leaving you to remember.

We shut the furnace down and red-tag it, because a cracked exchanger is a carbon monoxide risk and it cannot be safely repaired. That is not an upsell: a cracked exchanger on a furnace still under manufacturer warranty may be replaced free, and we will tell you if yours qualifies. If it does not, replacement is the only safe answer and we will quote it honestly, including the option of waiting until spring with temporary heat if the budget needs it.

A mini-split is the right answer for a garage conversion, a sunroom, an addition or a room the ducts never reached, and it is frequently cheaper than extending ductwork through a finished house. It is the wrong answer for replacing a working ducted system throughout a house purely to save money, because you end up with a head on the wall of every room. Extending the existing system only works if that system has spare capacity, which after a conversion it usually does not.

On a heat pump, that usually means the heat pump itself has failed quietly and the electric auxiliary heat strips have been carrying the house. They work, and they are expensive to run, so the house feels fine while the bill climbs. It is worth booking a heat pump service if your bill has risen without weather to explain it, because the fault has probably been there for weeks.

Most visits carry a two hour arrival window, and roofing and construction visits carry three. We quote a window rather than an exact time because a trades crew genuinely cannot promise a minute, and we would rather be accurate than optimistic. We text you when the crew is on the way.

Yes. The diagnostic fee covers the technician's time and a written fault report, and it is waived when you approve the repair. Installation and replacement quotes carry no diagnostic fee at all, because nothing is being diagnosed on an estimate visit.

Not quite. A request is not a held slot. We confirm within 30 minutes during dispatch hours, and first thing the next dispatch day if you request outside them. The availability shown on the site reflects how full a day usually is rather than a live view of the dispatch board.

We accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, ACH bank transfer, and financing on qualifying projects. Payment is due on completion for service work, and on a staged schedule set out in the quote for larger projects. There are two payment methods we cannot take, which are covered in our billing questions.

Give us 24 hours notice and there is no charge. One call or one text is enough to reschedule, and we would much rather move you than charge you. Cancelling inside that window, or nobody being home when the crew arrives, carries a no-show fee.

There is a no-show fee, and it is the same figure as the late cancellation fee. It covers the slot another customer could have used and the crew's drive. If you are running late rather than absent, call us and we will usually wait or come back later the same day at no charge.

A technician arrives inside the arrival window, diagnoses the fault, tells you the repair price before touching anything, and completes the work if you approve it. You get a written report either way. Nothing is added to the invoice without your approval first, and we do not carry out extra work while you are out of the room.

The office is open Monday to Friday from 07:30, and Saturday mornings. Crews dispatch on a wider window, from 07:00 to 19:00 on weekdays and 08:00 to 16:00 on Saturday. There is no scheduled dispatch on Sunday. Emergency coverage runs 24 hours a day, every day, including holidays.

We cover Raleigh, Durham, Cary and the wider Triangle, with coverage recorded city by city because it is not uniform. Most cities have every trade and no travel fee, two have a limited set of trades and a travel fee, one is emergency coverage only, and some adjacent zip codes are outside the service radius entirely. Enter your zip code on our service areas page for a definitive answer.

No. We are residential only, including multifamily buildings up to four units. A four-unit building is the ceiling and it is a real one rather than a preference: our crews, our insurance and our licences are all sized for residential work. For anything larger, or for any commercial or industrial property, you need a commercial general contractor.

No to all three, and we will point you at the right trade for each. Pool and spa equipment sits under a separate licence, so you need a pool service company. Septic systems need a licensed septic contractor, and Wake County keeps a list of permitted installers. Solar needs a solar installer, though we will happily reroof around an existing array. We publish the full list of work we do not take on rather than making you ask.

Yes, Monday through Friday. We do not staff Spanish-speaking crews at weekends. If you need one, ask when you book and we will schedule you on a weekday rather than send someone who cannot explain the work to you.

Yes. We hold five North Carolina licences covering HVAC, general contracting, roofing, plumbing and electrical, and every licence number is published on our site rather than available on request. We carry general liability cover and workers compensation cover, and we are bonded. Certificates go to your adjuster or your HOA the same day you ask.

Twelve months on labour and parts is the standard, and several services carry considerably longer. Roof replacements carry ten years on workmanship, repiping ten years, structural repair five years, and cabinetry five years. Manufacturer warranties on equipment run separately and are often longer still, and we register them in your name before we leave.

We come back and put it right at no charge. There is no time limit on a workmanship complaint about a repair we performed. Call the office rather than the crew directly, so it gets logged and scheduled rather than depending on one person remembering.

Secure them away from the work area before we arrive. This is genuinely for their safety rather than ours: crews prop doors open, carry sharp and heavy things through the house, and use tools that frighten animals. Tell us when you book if you have a dog that needs handling carefully, and we will note it on the job.

For most visits, no, provided we can get in and reach the work. Inspections, maintenance visits and outdoor work frequently happen with nobody home. You do need to be there for anything where we will be quoting work, making decisions with you, or entering occupied rooms. We will tell you which yours is when you book.

A clear path to the work area, clear parking for a van near the house, and unlocked side gates where the job is round the back. Roofing and outdoor work need the driveway, sometimes for a skip. If parking is difficult where you are, tell us when you book, because a crew circling for twenty minutes is time on your job.

Two separate operations with separate rules. Scheduled work runs inside published dispatch hours, is booked into an arrival window, and carries the ordinary diagnostic fee. Emergency work runs around the clock on a fixed shortlist of eight services, targets a 90 minute response, and carries a call-out fee on top. Ringing the emergency line about something outside that shortlist does not upgrade it; you get booked into the next ordinary window instead. Our emergency questions list exactly which eight services qualify and set out what to do while you wait.

Thirty days from the date on it. Beyond that we will re-price rather than honour a figure that no longer covers the materials, and material prices on roofing and lumber in particular move enough that a quarter-old quote is not meaningful. Re-pricing an expired quote is quick, because the survey work is already done.

It depends on how much work you expect to need. The plans bundle seasonal visits with priority dispatch and a standing discount on repairs, billed monthly, and the discount alone pays for the cheapest tier if you have one significant repair a year. If you rarely call anyone out, paying per visit is the better arithmetic and we will say so.

No. Cedarline Home Services is a fictional company used for demos. Every price, policy, licence number and phone number on this site is invented for that purpose, and none of it should be relied on as a real quotation or a real business record.

Leave the building first. Call the gas utility from outside. Then call us. Do not operate light switches, do not touch any appliance or control, and do not go looking for the source. The gas utility makes the property safe; we deal with the equipment afterwards. Our phone agents escalate any report of a gas smell to a person immediately and will not attempt a diagnosis while you are still in the house.

Eight services qualify, and they are the ones where waiting until morning does real damage. In HVAC: AC repair, furnace repair and heat pump service. In roofing: roof repair where a leak is active. In plumbing: leak detection and repair, sump pump service and gas line service. In electrical: a panel upgrade where power has been lost entirely. Nothing else on our catalogue is emergency-eligible at any hour.

No. Neither is emergency work and we will not dispatch a crew overnight for either. Emergency cover exists for eight specific services: AC repair, furnace repair, heat pump service, roof repair with an active leak, leak detection and repair, sump pump service, gas line service, and a panel upgrade with total loss of power. Cabinetry, fencing, decking, remodeling, lawn and patio work, and all cosmetic work are never emergency work, whatever time you call. We will book you into the next ordinary dispatch window instead, and we would rather say that plainly than charge you an emergency rate for a job that can wait.

When we dispatch outside dispatch hours there is a call-out fee on top of the repair itself, and our target is to be with you within 90 minutes. That call-out fee is separate from the after-hours surcharge that applies to work carried out between 19:00 and 07:00 or on a Sunday. Both figures are published on our hours and pricing pages rather than left for the invoice, and both can apply to the same visit.

Yes, for emergencies. Emergency coverage runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including every holiday on which the office and ordinary dispatch are closed. Scheduled work does not run on those dates, and our holiday closures are published in full with their dates so you can see exactly which days are affected.

Our target is 90 minutes for an emergency, and it is a target rather than a guarantee. Response times stretch during widespread events: a regional hailstorm or a hard freeze puts every crew in the region under the same demand at the same time. When that happens we tell you the realistic window rather than repeating the target, and we prioritise by severity rather than by call order.

Leave the building, call the gas utility from outside, and call us second. Treat it exactly as you would a gas smell: do not go looking for the source and do not assume it is a faulty alarm. Carbon monoxide has no smell, which is the whole reason the alarm exists. Once the property is safe we will find the cause, which is most often a cracked heat exchanger or a venting fault.

Close the main water shutoff, usually where the supply enters the house, turning it clockwise until it stops. If you cannot find it or it will not move, tell us when you call and that report goes straight to a person while a crew is already moving. If water is reaching a light fitting or a distribution board, switch that circuit off at the consumer unit if you can do so safely, and tell us that too.

Yes, if it is active. Water actively entering the house, a ceiling bulging with water above it, the roof torn open to the sky, or water reaching anything electrical are all emergency-eligible and covered around the clock. A stain that appeared last month and has not grown is not, and we will book that into an ordinary window rather than charge you an emergency rate. Put a bucket under the drip and move furniture out from under the stain before we arrive.

Below 40F outdoors is the threshold we use for no heat, and above 85F indoors for no cooling. Those are the points at which a failure stops being uncomfortable and starts being a health risk, particularly for very young, elderly or unwell people in the house. Tell us if anyone in the household is vulnerable, because that changes how we prioritise regardless of the thermometer.

The utility, if your street is out too. Look at whether your neighbours are dark: if they are, only the power company can restore it and they will be faster than anyone, because there is nothing on your side of the meter to fix. If your neighbours have power and you do not, the fault is on your side, it is emergency-eligible, and it is ours.

Then we make it safe and come back. An overnight visit is about stopping the harm: isolating a circuit, capping a line, tarping an opening, getting the water off. A permanent repair needing a part nobody stocks at two in the morning waits for the supplier to open, and we book the return visit before we leave rather than asking you to ring again. You are told at the time which of the two you are getting, and you are not charged an emergency rate twice for the same fault.

It means we will come out to you for the eight emergency-eligible services around the clock, but we do not schedule ordinary work there. Chapel Hill is our one emergency-only city. You get the same 90 minute response target and the same call-out fee as anywhere else in the coverage area; what you cannot book is a routine repair, a maintenance visit or a project. Enter your zip code on our service areas page for a definitive answer on your address.