Technician working at an outdoor air conditioning condenser after dark using a work light

Emergency service

Emergency AC repair, 24 hours a day

A house with no cooling in a Houston August is not a minor inconvenience. Call and describe what happened. You will get a realistic answer about timing rather than a scripted one.

Call (866) 427-9264 now

If the house has lost cooling right now

Call (866) 427-9264. Emergency HVAC service runs 24 hours a day, and the office on Murphy Road in Stafford is a short drive from most of Sugar Land, Missouri City and southwest Houston.

Before you call, it helps to know whether the outdoor unit is running, what the thermostat reads, and whether a breaker has tripped. If you do not know, call anyway.

While you wait

Close blinds and curtains on the sun-facing side of the house
Set the thermostat fan to on rather than auto if the blower still runs. Moving air feels several degrees cooler than still air
Run bathroom and kitchen exhaust fans to pull humidity and heat out
Avoid the oven, the dryer and anything else that adds heat and moisture
If the coil has frozen, switch the system to off and leave the fan running to thaw it. Running a frozen system damages the compressor
Move anyone vulnerable to heat to the coolest part of the house, and get somewhere air-conditioned if the indoor temperature keeps climbing

Is this actually an emergency?

A fair question, and worth asking before paying an after-hours premium.

Call now if:

There is no cooling at all and the house is climbing past comfortable
Anyone in the house is vulnerable to heat
Water is coming through a ceiling
There is a burning smell, or a breaker that trips every time it is reset
The outdoor unit is making a loud grinding or screeching noise

Morning is usually fine if:

The system is cooling, just not as well as it should
One room is uncomfortable and the rest of the house is fine
The system is noisier than usual but running normally
It is an overnight failure and the house is holding a tolerable temperature

Call (866) 427-9264

Why these calls cluster

The failures that happen at the worst possible moment

Emergency calls are not randomly distributed. They spike on the hottest afternoons of the year, and there is a mechanical reason for that rather than bad luck.

Heat is what exposes marginal components. A capacitor that has been slowly losing capacitance works well enough on a 92°F day and fails on a 100°F one, because the compressor is working harder and needs more of a push to start. A contactor with pitted contacts behaves the same way. Systems that have been quietly low on refrigerant all summer finally cannot keep up when the load peaks, and a coil that has been running cold enough to ice up intermittently freezes solid.

Condensate failures follow the same pattern for a different reason. The hotter and more humid it is, the more water the evaporator coil produces, and a partially restricted drain line that coped in May overflows in August. That is when float switches trip and systems shut themselves down, usually in the afternoon, usually with no warning.

None of this makes a breakdown your fault. It does explain why the answer to “it was fine yesterday” is usually that it was not quite fine yesterday either.

What is it doing?

If you have a moment before calling, these pages narrow it down.

AC not cooling

Running, blowing air, house still warming up.

AC will not turn on

Silence at the thermostat or at the outdoor unit.

Frozen AC coil

Ice on the line set or the indoor coil. Switch it off before it damages the compressor.

Water leaking from the AC

Ceiling stains and overflowing pans. Turn the system off first.

AC repair

The standard-hours version, and what the diagnosis covers.

Service areas

How far the coverage reaches from Stafford.

Emergency service questions

What does after-hours service cost?

After-hours, weekend and holiday work generally carries a premium over standard scheduling across the trade, because it is unscheduled labour outside normal hours. Ask for the figure when you call so it is agreed before anyone is dispatched rather than discovered on the invoice.

Is it cheaper to wait until morning?

Usually, yes, and sometimes waiting is the right call. The judgement is about the household rather than the equipment. If everyone is comfortable enough and the house is holding a tolerable temperature, morning is fine. If there are infants, elderly residents or anyone with a medical condition affected by heat, do not wait to save a call-out premium.

The AC stopped and there is water in the ceiling. What now?

Turn the system off at the thermostat and leave it off. That stops the coil producing more condensate. A ceiling stain from an attic air handler means the primary drain has failed and the secondary pan is overflowing, and continuing to run the system makes the damage worse by the hour. Then call. See AC water leaks.

Can you fix it tonight or will it need parts?

Common failures such as capacitors, contactors and drain clogs are usually resolved on the visit. Anything inside the refrigerant circuit, or a part that has to be sourced, may need a return visit. You will be told which of those you are in as soon as the diagnosis is done rather than at the end.

If you are unsure whether it can wait, that is itself a good reason to call and ask.