AC Installation in Aurora, IL
A new air conditioner in Aurora will run from June through August every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Kane County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Three months of real work, then long stretches of rest
Kane County summers run June through August, with afternoons averaging 82°F. That is not a long season, but it is a demanding one, and a new system needs to be sized right for the house it is cooling rather than oversized on guesswork.
Hail and wind come through here too, 65 hail events and 190 damaging wind events logged over the last ten years, some hail over two inches. The outdoor unit sits exposed to that, so where it goes and what shields it matter. Any new central air conditioner installed today also has to meet the federal minimum of 13.4 SEER2, so that baseline is set before you even start comparing units.
- 3 months
- June through August, your air conditioner is on duty
- 82°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 65 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 13.4 SEER2
- the federal minimum any new unit must meet
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A higher-efficiency unit would save about $30 a year to run in Kane County compared with a new unit at the federal minimum.
Estimates for a typical Kane County home, from EIA household energy data, Illinois fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
In Illinois, HVAC licensing for homes is left to the cities and towns.
In Kane County, whether this job needs a local license depends on the city or township where the house sits. Illinois keeps no state record of HVAC contractors, so that record, if it exists at all, is held by the town, not the state.
For an air conditioner installation, the protection most homes here have is the permit. Most cities and counties require a permit from the local building office before the work starts, and an inspection once the new unit is in. That inspection is what checks the installation was done right. It is not a license, and it does not depend on who the contractor is, only on whether the job got permitted and looked at when it was finished.
Source: Illinois General Assembly
- What size air conditioner does my house need?
- The right size depends on your home's square footage, ceiling height, insulation, window placement, and how much shade it gets, not on a simple square footage chart. A contractor works this out with a load calculation done room by room. An oversized unit cools the air fast but shuts off before it pulls the humidity out, which leaves the house feeling clammy. An undersized one runs constantly on the hot afternoons here and still struggles to keep up.
- Should I replace the whole system or just the outdoor unit?
- In most cases the outdoor unit and indoor coil need to be replaced together. They are matched to work at a specific capacity and efficiency, and pairing a new outdoor unit with an old indoor coil usually means the system never runs the way it was designed to. Age matters too. If the indoor coil is old enough that it is close to needing its own replacement, doing both now can save you from paying for labor a second time later. A contractor can look at the condition of the indoor coil and the rest of the ductwork and tell you whether it makes sense to replace just the outdoor unit or the whole system.
- Do HVAC contractors in Aurora need a state license to work on my home?
- Illinois does not license HVAC contractors at the state level for residential work. That is left to individual cities and towns, so whether a license is required depends on local rules here in Aurora. Check with the city to see what it requires before hiring someone.