Two visits a year. One in the spring, before you need cooling; one in the fall, before you need heat. The point is simple — find the parts that are failing while it is still a scheduled appointment rather than an emergency.
Nearly every no-cool call we take in July is a fault that was measurable in April.
Spring visit — before the cooling season
This one is about the outdoor unit and everything that has to survive a Carolina summer.
- Clean the outdoor condenser coil, and clear grass, leaves and cottonwood from around the unit
- Test the capacitor against its rated value — not just whether it works, but how far it has drifted
- Check the contactor for pitting and burnt contacts
- Measure system pressures and check the refrigerant charge
- Measure the compressor and fan motor current draw against spec
- Clear the condensate drain line and check the safety switch
- Inspect the indoor coil and the blower wheel for dirt build-up
- Tighten electrical connections and check for heat damage
- Check the filter, and tell you honestly how often yours actually needs changing
- Run a full cooling cycle and confirm the temperature split across the coil
The capacitor test is the one that earns the visit most often. They fade gradually, and a weak one makes the compressor work far harder than it should for months before anything actually breaks.
Fall visit — before the heating season
This visit is about the parts that only matter once it turns cold, and that have therefore sat unused since March. What we check depends on what you have — most homes here run heat pumps, but gas furnaces and dual-fuel systems are common enough, and those carry a different kind of risk.
If you have a heat pump
- Test the defrost board and run a defrost cycle to confirm it actually initiates and terminates
- Check the reversing valve changes over properly between heating and cooling
- Test the auxiliary and emergency heat stages, and confirm they are not running when they should not be
- Check the outdoor unit sits level and drains, so meltwater does not refreeze under the coil
- Inspect the sequencer and heat strips
Two of these earn the visit on their own. A thermostat set up as a conventional system rather than a heat pump will lean on the auxiliary heat strips constantly — the house stays warm and the power bill climbs sharply, so nobody reports it as a fault. And a defrost board that has quietly failed will not show itself until the first hard freeze, which is exactly when you do not want to find out.
If you have a gas furnace
Anything that burns fuel inside your house is a safety inspection first and a comfort one second. We service gas furnaces properly, and this is the part of the year where that matters.
- Inspect the heat exchanger for cracks — the single most important check on a gas furnace, because a cracked exchanger can put combustion gases into the air you breathe
- Clean and inspect the burners, and check the flame pattern
- Test the ignitor and flame sensor — between them, the most common reason a modern furnace will not light
- Check gas pressure, and test the connections for leaks
- Inspect the flue and venting for blockage, corrosion and proper draft
- Test the limit switch, pressure switch and rollout switches
- Check for carbon monoxide around the appliance
A furnace that has been sitting idle since spring is the one most likely to hide a problem. Birds nest in flues over the summer, and a blocked vent is dangerous in a way a broken air conditioner never is.
Separately from anything we do: if your home burns gas, you should have working carbon monoxide alarms. The NFPA has guidance on where they go and how often to test them. We would rather you had those regardless of who services your furnace.
Either system
- Verify the thermostat is configured correctly for the equipment actually installed
- Test safety controls and limit switches
- Inspect wiring and electrical connections for heat damage
- Check the blower and filter again after a summer of use
- Run a full heating cycle and confirm the temperature rise
What this is, and what it is not
It is scheduled inspection, cleaning and testing. It catches worn parts early, keeps the system running closer to the efficiency it was designed for, and means somebody has looked at your equipment recently.
It is not a warranty, and it is not a promise that nothing will ever break. Parts still fail. What changes is how often you find out about it during a heatwave.
Filters, refrigerant and any parts that need replacing are separate from the visit itself — we will tell you what we have found and what it will cost before we do anything.
Why twice, and why those months
Because a heat pump is two systems sharing one set of hardware, and each half sits idle for half the year. The cooling side is checked in spring because that is when it has been dormant since September; the heating side in fall for the same reason in reverse.
Doing it once a year means one of those two halves is always going into its season untested.
Between visits, the single most useful thing you can do is change the filter and keep the outdoor unit clear. The ENERGY STAR maintenance guidance covers the homeowner side of it without trying to sell you anything.
We also handle HVAC repairs when something has already gone wrong — compressors, capacitors, fan motors, defrost boards, thermostats and full system installs.