Takes about a minute. No obligation.
Texas homes paid 14.94 cents per kilowatthour in 2024. That is what every extra bit of strain on your AC turns into on the bill. A dirty coil or a low refrigerant charge makes the compressor work harder to cool the same rooms, and that extra draw shows up every month the system runs. A neglected AC does not just risk breaking down. It costs more to run for as long as nobody looks at it.
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A dirty filter is the one thing you can check without a wrench.
Pull it out, hold it to the light, and if you can't see through it, swap it.
Half the homes in Johnson County were built in 1997 or later. If yours is one of them, the AC is probably not the problem that's going to bite you, at least not yet. A compressor that's a few years old just needs the coil clean and the charge right to keep running the way it did on day one. Skip the yearly check and small things pile up quietly, a few ounces low on refrigerant, a coil with a season of dust on it, and the system is working harder without anyone noticing. Catching that early is the whole point of a maintenance visit on a newer unit.
A neglected system uses more power, and power costs more here. A tune-up pays for itself.
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A system that skips maintenance does not fail all at once. It keeps running, a little weaker every month, because nothing in it forces a stop. Dust on the coil, a capacitor losing strength, a contactor with pitted contacts, none of that trips a switch. The system just works harder to do the same job, and it keeps doing that until the one part already closest to failing gets asked to run on the one afternoon it can't. That is usually the day it quits. A yearly check does not add anything new to the system. It finds the part that is already wearing out while it is still running, instead of after.
The indoor coil pulls heat out of the air passing over it, and dust on that coil blocks the transfer. The outdoor coil has to dump that same heat outside, and debris packed into its fins blocks it the same way. Either one dirty, the system does not shut off. It just runs longer to reach the same temperature, with the compressor working harder the whole time it runs.
Cooling the air also pulls moisture out of it, and that water is supposed to run out through the condensate drain. Algae and dust build up inside that line the same as in any small drain, and once it clogs the water backs up into the drain pan. A float switch will shut the system off if the pan fills, or the pan overflows into the ceiling or closet below if there is no switch to catch it.
A tune-up checks the refrigerant charge, cleans the coils, tests the capacitor and tightens the electrical connections.
A tune-up is more than a quick look and a hose-down. The refrigerant charge gets checked against what the system calls for, because too little and the compressor runs long and hard, too much and it can't manage heat the way it should either way. The contactor and capacitor get tested under load, not just eyeballed, since both can look fine sitting still and still be too weak to start the compressor on a hot afternoon. The blower wheel gets checked for dust buildup, which throws off airflow across the whole system even when the filter upstream is clean. Electrical connections get tightened, because a loose connection heats up under load and that heat damages the part it's feeding. None of this shows up from across the room. It shows up when someone opens the unit and tests it.
