Texas Cooling Help
Overhead view of a gray residential air conditioning condenser unit mounted on a concrete pad beside a house with asphalt shingle roofing.

AC Installation in Austin, TX

Tell us about the job

Takes about a minute. No obligation.

Step 1 of 3: Equipment

Electricity here runs 14.94 cents a kilowatt-hour

Texas homes paid that rate on average in 2024. A system that wastes power turns that rate into a bigger number every single month it runs.

Efficiency is worth paying for at installation

The SEER2 rating on the unit you choose decides how much electricity it takes to cool this house. That choice gets made once, at install, and you live with it on every bill after.

7 months
April through October, your air conditioner is on duty
95°F
the average summer afternoon it cools against
147 hail events
in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
13.4 SEER2
the federal minimum any new unit must meet
Isometric line illustration of a cutaway single-story building showing interior rooms, ceiling ductwork, an indoor air handler, and an outdoor condenser unit connected by a line set.
Your air conditioner works hardest from May through September.

NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals

The SEER2 number on the label tells you how much cooling the system squeezes out of every unit of electricity it uses.

A system with a higher rating can cool a house to the same temperature while drawing less power from the wall to do it.

Hail and high wind are routine here. Where the outdoor unit sits and how it's protected matters as much as the unit itself.

277 severe weather events from 2015 to 2024
33% of homes statewide lost power a day or more in 2024
103 damaging wind events from 2015 to 2024
Most of Austin runs on electric heatElectricity heats 56.8% of homes in Travis County, more than any other fuel.

Travis County sits in climate zone 2A, hot and humid, where cooling is the main load on the system all year. Because of that, new split-system units installed here have to hit at least 14.3 SEER2 below 45,000 Btu/h, higher than the 13.4 SEER2 minimum that applies in most of the country. Whatever gets installed in your house has to clear that bar before it can legally go in. A federal tax credit is also available for qualifying high-efficiency equipment, which is worth asking about when you're comparing systems.

Replace it before April, not during it

Cooling runs April through October here, seven months straight once it starts. March is the last quiet month on the system. Installing before the first hot week means the sizing, the setup and any permit work happen on a normal schedule instead of a rushed one, and the unit is already broken in by the time it has to run every day.

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An outdoor air conditioning condenser unit mounted on a concrete pad beside a house, with electrical conduit running to a wall-mounted disconnect box.

Seven months a year, this unit works

This one runs April through October, seven months straight once the heat starts. Afternoon highs average 95 through June, July and August, so most of its working life is spent against real heat, not mild days. A unit sized right for this house holds steady through that stretch. One that is undersized or just cheaply matched runs longer hours to hit the same temperature, and seven months is a long time to be working harder than it needs to.

The size is a calculation, not a guess from square footage

A contractor works out the right size by adding up how much heat the house gains through its walls, windows, roof and attic air, along with heat from people and appliances inside. Houses the same size can need different sized systems depending on window placement, insulation and how many floors they have. Picking a size off a chart or matching what the old unit had skips that math.

Bigger isn't safer, it's worse on both counts

An oversized system cools the air fast and shuts off before it has run long enough to pull humidity out of the house, so the air feels cold and damp at the same time. An undersized one never shuts off at all on the hottest days, straining to reach a temperature it can't hold. Either way the house ends up less comfortable than it would be with a system sized to the load.

Overhead view of an outdoor AC condenser unit on a concrete pad next to a house with a dark shingle roof.

A higher-efficiency unit would save about $30 a year to run in Travis County compared with a new unit at the federal minimum.

  • A higher-efficiency unit$490 a year
  • A new unit at the federal minimum, 14.3 SEER2$520 a year

Estimates for a typical Travis County home, from EIA household energy data, Texas fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.

Installation starts with pulling out the old condenser and coil, then running new line set to connect the outdoor unit to the indoor coil. Before any refrigerant goes in, the lines get pulled down to a vacuum to clear out moisture and air, because either one left behind causes problems later. Once the system is charged, the technician checks refrigerant pressure against the manufacturer's spec, confirms airflow at the vents, and tests the thermostat connection. If ductwork needs work too, that gets handled before the system is sealed up and charged. A permit inspection may happen separately depending on what the job involved. Before anyone leaves, the system should run a full cooling cycle so you can feel cold air at the vents and hear it shut off on its own when the thermostat is satisfied.