The only reason I gave them five stars is because I could not give them six! I apologize for the really long review, but I am that impressed with my experience with this company!
For the last few months of last summer, my AC was not working as well as it had in the past. A few days ago, when I turned it on for the first time this spring, it was not cooling at all. Based on what I know about AC, and from research on the internet, I was pretty sure my system had developed a leak and all of the Freon had leaked out.
I did some research, looking for a company to call, and narrowed it down to AC Cool and one other company. The other company had a lot more Yelp reviews, but had only been in business a few years. AC Cool has been in business since 1991, and is a dealer for the brand of AC unit I have, so I gave them a call.
When I spoke to Paul on the phone, he was very easy to deal with. It was around mid day, and he told me they were booked up and could not come out that day, but could come out first thing in the morning.
The next morning, Jeff, the technician, arrived on time, and was very nice. He was very knowledgeable, and was also patient with me and my questions. He listened very attentively while I explained to him the problem, what I thought was the reason for it, and also while I gave him a "brief" history of my AC unit, and the work I had done on it in the past. Jeff was also very patient with all of my questions while he was working and explained exactly what he was doing and why.
Jeff then got his equipment, and quickly determined that my system had indeed lost all of its Freon. He told me that it is often very hard to find out exactly where an AC system is leaking Freon. He said that AC systems normally do not just develop a leak, and that sometimes Freon will just leak out over a period of many years. He also explained to me what the options were to deal with my problem.
A new system was out of the question, even though my system is about 22 years old. Jeff said that many times the obvious choice is to just recharge the system with new Freon, and see if it fixes the problem. Jeff explained that this can be expensive, if there is a real leak. He also mentioned that some techs will sometimes inject a purple dye when recharging a system that might have a leak. The dye would sometimes show where the leak is. The main problem with these two options is that Freon is not cheap, and if there really is a leak, you may wind up having to recharge the system twice.
Jeff then explained to me that what he liked to do was to use nitrogen to try and see if there is a leak in the system, since nitrogen is much cheaper than Freon. He explained that there was no guarantee that he could find a leak using nitrogen, but it was the best bet. I decided to take his advice and he charged my AC unit with nitrogen until the pressure of the nitrogen was at 300 PSI. Jeff said that if there was a leak it would definitely show up on his pressure gauges. He was immediately able to tell that there was a significant leak. Jeff listened all around my condenser and the lines going from it into the house, and did not find a leak. We then went into the house, and he listened in the AC/heater closet. At first, he could not hear anything, but then he heard the sound of a leak. It only took him a minute to determine the leak was not in the house. This left only the AC lines that traveled over the roof from the compressor on the ground to where they went into the house.
Jeff climbed on the roof, and found the leak in a minute or so. The return line had rubbed on the roof where the lines traveled up through the eave and onto the top of the roof. The leaks, there were two of them, were where the line passed through the hole in the roof. Jeff then got his torch and had the leaks fixed in about two minutes. He then blew out all of the nitrogen, and recharged my system with new Freon. Testing the system showed that it was now working better than ever, and that it was no longer leaking.
The bill for all of this was very reasonable! It was only $374. The service I received from AC Cool was excellent! It was not only quick, efficient and very reasonable, but I can already tell that my AC bill will be a lot less this summer than it was last year! Any time I need any work done on m AC/heating unit, that I cannot do myself, I will be calling Paul at AC Cool and asking him to send Jeff back to see me! read more