Takes about a minute. No obligation.
A dirty coil or a low charge makes your AC run longer to hit the same temperature, and in Corpus Christi that extra runtime isn't cheap. Texas homes paid 14.94 cents per kilowatthour in 2024, and an AC that's working harder than it should pulls more of them, month after month. A unit in good shape doesn't have to fight through a dirty filter or a weak capacitor to do the same job. Skip the upkeep and the system quietly costs you more to run every single day it's hot outside, which in Corpus Christi is most of the year.
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
AC runs in Corpus Christi from March through November.
Get it checked in February, before it has to work.
Nueces County logged 127 severe weather events between 2015 and 2024, most of them damaging wind. Your outdoor unit sits outside year round and takes the brunt of it. Wind drives debris into the coil and the fan. Hail dents the cabinet and can bend the fins right where the coil needs open air to work. A bent or clogged coil makes the system work harder without you ever seeing why. Have it checked for damage before the season gets going, while it's still easy to fix.
A tune-up now costs you nothing in comparison to months of a system working harder than it should. Get the coil and charge checked before the bill shows what neglect costs at 14.94 cents a kilowatt-hour.
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If your system went in with the house, a yearly check is what keeps it running like new equipment instead of aging like old equipment. A tech can catch a weak capacitor or a coil going dirty before either one turns into a bigger repair. Newer systems still fail early when nobody looks at them for years at a stretch.
A thorough tech pulls the panel, checks the capacitor's actual readings against what's printed on it, and washes the coil instead of just looking at it. The refrigerant charge gets checked against the manufacturer's numbers, not guessed at. A quick visit means someone glances at the filter, listens for a minute, and leaves.
A system that only got a glance will still start up fine and blow cold air that afternoon. What a rushed visit misses is the weak capacitor that fails in the middle of a hot stretch, or the coil that keeps losing airflow until the compressor strains against it. The work that matters is the kind you can't see from the thermostat.
A tune-up checks the refrigerant charge, cleans the coils, tests the capacitor and tightens the electrical connections.
A real tune-up starts outside at the condenser. The tech cuts power at the disconnect, pulls the cabinet, and washes the coil with water or a cleaner made for it, not just a rinse from the hose. Inside, the blower wheel gets checked for dust buildup, since a dirty wheel moves less air even when the motor runs fine. The refrigerant lines get checked for rubbed spots or loose insulation, because a line that's chafed against the cabinet will eventually leak. Electrical connections get tightened, since a loose connection builds heat and that heat is what burns a contactor out early. None of this shows up on a thermostat reading. It shows up months later, in a system that still runs when the rest of the block is calling for repairs.
