AC Installation in Waukegan, IL
A new air conditioner in Waukegan will run from June through August every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Lake County will get in touch.
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Three months of real heat, plus hail and wind to plan around
Waukegan gets three months of cooling weather, June through August, with summer afternoons averaging 81°F. That is a short season, but it is a demanding one, and a new system has to be sized to handle it from the first hot week to the last.
Lake County has logged 64 hail events and 138 damaging wind events over the past ten years, with hail as large as 2.25 inches. The outdoor unit sits outside through all of that, so where it goes and how it is protected matters as much as the equipment itself. Any new central air conditioner installed today also has to meet the federal efficiency minimum of 13.4 SEER2.
- 3 months
- June through August, your air conditioner is on duty
- 81°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 64 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
Going above the federal minimum saves little here, about $20 a year.
Estimates for a typical Lake 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.
Lake County sets its own rule for who can do HVAC work, since Illinois leaves that to the cities and towns instead of licensing contractors statewide. That means there's no state test behind a contractor's name here, no state record to check. What applies to your job depends on where in Lake County the house sits, since each city and town writes its own requirement.
For an air conditioner installation, the protection here comes from the permit process rather than a license. In most cities and counties, this job needs a permit from the local building office and an inspection once the work is done, and that inspection is what confirms the installation was done right.
Source: Illinois General Assembly
- What size air conditioner does my house need?
- The right size depends on your home's square footage, how much shade and sun it gets, how well it's insulated, and the layout of the ductwork, not on a rule of thumb. A contractor sizes the unit with a load calculation that looks at all of this together. An oversized unit cools the air fast but shuts off before it pulls the humidity down, so the house feels clammy. An undersized one runs constantly and still can't keep up on the hottest afternoons. Since summer highs here average 81°F, a system sized correctly for your house should hold up fine through the season without oversizing for extremes that don't happen.
- Should I replace the whole system or just the outdoor unit?
- If your outdoor unit and indoor coil are different ages, replacing just the outdoor unit usually isn't a good idea. The two are matched to work together, and pairing an old coil with a new condenser can mean the system never reaches the efficiency it's rated for, and sometimes voids the warranty on the new part. New units also have to meet the current federal minimum of 13.4 SEER2, which older indoor coils weren't designed around. A contractor can look at the age and condition of both pieces and tell you whether a matched replacement makes more sense than swapping just one.
- Do HVAC contractors in Waukegan need a state license to work on my home?
- Illinois doesn't license HVAC contractors at the state level for residential work. That's handled by individual cities and towns instead. Check with Waukegan directly on what it requires before hiring someone, since the rule isn't the same everywhere in the state.