AC Repair in Grants Pass, OR
Air conditioners here run from July through August. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Josephine County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Grants Pass only needs two months of cooling, but wind puts it to work
Your air conditioner earns its keep in July and August, when afternoons average 79°F. That is a short season, so the unit sits idle most of the year, then gets asked to run hard once summer hits.
Josephine County sees far more wind than hail. Fifty-three damaging wind events have hit the area over the past ten years, and wind like that can rock an outdoor unit on its pad or knock debris into the fan and coil. If your AC is buzzing, tripping the breaker, or blowing warm air right when you need it most, that is the kind of stress behind it.
- 2 months
- July through August, your air conditioner is on duty
- 79°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 1 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 53 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 Josephine County, so the repair decision comes down to the unit's condition.
Estimates for a typical Josephine County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, Oregon 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.
Oregon requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
Oregon licenses HVAC contractors through the Construction Contractors Board. That license belongs to the contractor, not to any one job, so the same license covers this repair and the next one they do for someone else. Work under $1,000 in Oregon does not need a licensed contractor, though most air conditioner repairs run past that.
That state license is the thing accountable for this job. If the repair involves opening the refrigerant side of the system, which most air conditioner repairs do, the technician also needs EPA Section 608 certification, a federal requirement that applies in every state regardless of what Oregon does on its own.
Source: Oregon Legislative Assembly
- Why is my AC not blowing cold air?
- Most often the refrigerant charge is low, which usually means there's a leak somewhere in the system. A dirty filter can also choke off airflow across the indoor coil until it freezes up and stops cooling. Either way, a technician needs to check the charge and inspect the coil, and touching the refrigerant side requires EPA certification, so this isn't a job to open up yourself.
- Why is my AC leaking water?
- The drain line that carries condensation away from the indoor coil is probably clogged. Algae and dust build up in that line over time and back the water up until it overflows the drain pan. It can also mean the pan itself has rusted through or cracked, which a contractor can confirm by looking at where the water is actually coming from.
- Why won't my AC turn on?
- Check the thermostat first, since dead batteries or a setting knocked out of place will stop the system before it ever starts. If that's not it, a tripped breaker or a blown fuse at the outdoor unit is the next likely cause. With 53 damaging wind events recorded here over the past ten years, a power interruption is a real possibility, and most systems need to be reset or manually restarted after one rather than turning back on by themselves.