Texas Cooling Help
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AC Installation in Dallas, TX

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Takes about a minute. No obligation.

Step 1 of 3: Equipment

Electricity here isn't cheap

Texas homes paid about 14.94 cents per kilowatthour in 2024. An AC that runs most of the day all summer turns that rate into a real number on the bill, month after month.

Efficiency matters more on installs

A new system is a chance to pick one that uses less power to do the same job. In Dallas, where the rate is high and the unit runs hard, that choice shows up on every bill that follows.

6 months
May through October, your air conditioner is on duty
94°F
the average summer afternoon it cools against
186 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 house showing interior rooms with furniture, ceiling ductwork, an indoor air handler, and an outdoor condenser unit connected by lines along the exterior wall.
Your air conditioner works hardest from June through September.

NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals

The SEER2 number on the label tells you how much cooling the unit delivers per unit of power, not how big or how strong it is.

A higher rated system can cool a house just as well as a lower rated one, while pulling less electricity to do it.

Most of Dallas County cools and heats with electricity, so an electric system matches the house next door

61.8% of homes heat with electricity
Cooling runs May through October
Summer afternoons average 94°F
Get it done before MayCooling runs May through October here. April is the month to have it ready.

Dallas County falls in climate zone 2A, a hot zone where cooling is the main load on the system all year. That puts it in the Southeast region for efficiency rules, and the minimum there is higher than the national one. A new split system under 45,000 Btu/h installed here has to meet 14.3 SEER2, not the 13.4 that applies in cooler parts of the country. That floor is set before a contractor ever opens a catalog. Whatever gets installed, it has to clear that number first.

This system will work hard every summer here, so get it sized right

Cooling runs six months here, May through October, with afternoon highs averaging 94 in June, July and August. A system sized or installed wrong will show the strain sooner in weather like this. Dallas County also sees frequent hail, so outdoor equipment takes a beating beyond just the heat. Get the sizing and the installation right from the start.

Find a contractor
A man in a dark cap, gray T-shirt and brown work pants climbs porch steps toward an orange front door, carrying a worn canvas tool bag, with a potted shrub beside the entry.
An outdoor air conditioning condenser unit mounted on a concrete pad beside a house, with electrical conduit running to a wall-mounted disconnect box.

Six months of this a year, so sizing isn't a guess

A contractor sizing this system needs real numbers on the house, not a guess off the square footage. Too big and it cools the air fast without pulling the moisture out, so the house feels damp even at the temperature you want. Too small and it runs flat out all day from May to October trying to catch up. Either way the strain shows up sooner here than it would somewhere milder. Ask whoever quotes the job to walk through how they landed on the size, not just what size they picked.

The equipment is one line on the quote

The condenser, the coil, the air handler and the refrigerant lines cost a fixed amount once you pick a size and an efficiency level. What changes the number more is everything around them. A line set that has to run further than the old one. A disconnect or breaker that needs upgrading to match the new unit's draw. A pad that has to be leveled or replaced. None of that shows up until someone is actually at the house looking at what's there.

Ductwork is where quotes split apart

A contractor matching new equipment to old ductwork is working with what's already run through the walls and attic. If the ducts are undersized, leaky, or sized for a different tonnage, the new system can't deliver what the label promises no matter how well it's installed. Sealing or resizing ducts costs more than swapping equipment alone. Skipping it means paying for capacity the house never gets to use.

Overhead view of an air conditioning condenser unit on a concrete pad next to a house with asphalt shingle roofing and vinyl siding.

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

  • A higher-efficiency unit$460 a year
  • A new unit at the federal minimum, 14.3 SEER2$490 a year

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

On install day the old system comes out first. The contractor recovers the refrigerant from the old lines before anything gets disconnected, since it's against the law to vent it into the air. Once the old condenser, coil and air handler are out, they'll check the line set, the disconnect and the pad before setting the new equipment, since those are the pieces that sometimes need work alongside the swap. Setting the new condenser and connecting the lines takes a few hours. Then comes the part that decides whether the install was done right. The contractor pulls a vacuum on the line set to clear out air and moisture before the refrigerant goes in. Skip that step or rush it, and moisture left in the lines can break the system down early. Once it's charged, a tech checks the refrigerant level against what the manufacturer specifies for that line length, not just by feel, and runs the system through a full cycle to make sure the airflow and temperature split are where they should be before calling it done.