AC Repair in Waukegan, IL
Air conditioners here run from June through August. If yours quits, tell us what it's doing and a licensed contractor who covers Lake County will get in touch.
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Three months of hard running, then hail season
Your air conditioner in Waukegan gets three months to do its job, June through August, with afternoons averaging 81°F. That is a short window, and the unit runs hard through all of it. The capacitor and the contactor take the brunt of all those cycles, and a weak capacitor shows up as a unit that hums but will not start, or a compressor that struggles to kick on.
Lake County has also logged 64 hail events and 138 damaging wind events over the past ten years, with hail up to 2.25 inches. That kind of storm bends the thin aluminum fins on your outdoor coil and can knock the unit out of alignment. If your air conditioner started struggling right after a storm rolled through, the coil or the fan is worth checking first.
- 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
- 138 wind events
- in ten years, and wind drives debris into outdoor units
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A new air conditioner would save little on running costs in Lake County, so the repair decision comes down to the unit's condition.
Estimates for a typical Lake County home, compared with an older unit built to the previous federal minimum, from EIA household energy data, Illinois fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
Repair makes sense when a part like a capacitor or contactor has failed.
Replacement makes sense when the compressor has failed or the system uses R-22 refrigerant, which is no longer made.
In Illinois, HVAC licensing for homes is left to the cities and towns.
In Lake County, whatever rule applies comes from the city or town where the house sits, not from the state. Some places may require a contractor license for this kind of work, others leave it alone entirely, and it depends on which town the house is in. There is no state board keeping a record of who is qualified to touch your air conditioner.
For a repair like this, the protection that does apply everywhere is federal. Any technician who opens the refrigerant side of your air conditioner, to recover it, recharge it, or fix a leak, has to hold EPA Section 608 certification. That holds true in Illinois the same as every other state, regardless of what the town does or does not require.
Source: Illinois General Assembly
- Why is my AC not blowing cold air?
- The most common cause is a dirty air filter choking off airflow across the coil. When that happens the coil can ice up and stop cooling the air moving past it. Low refrigerant from a leak is another common cause, and that needs a contractor to find the leak and fix it, not just add refrigerant. If the outdoor unit isn't running at all while the indoor blower is, the compressor or a capacitor may have failed.
- Why is my AC leaking water?
- Most of the time this is a clogged condensate drain line. The drain line carries the water your AC pulls out of the air, and algae or dirt can block it, sending water back up and out of the pan. A dirty air filter can also cause this by freezing the coil, which then drips as it thaws. If the drain pan itself has rusted through, water will leak no matter how clear the line is, and the pan needs replacing.
- Why won't my AC turn on?
- Check your thermostat first. Make sure it's set to cool and the temperature is below the room temperature, and replace the batteries if it has a blank screen. If the thermostat looks fine, check your breaker panel since a tripped breaker will keep the whole system from starting. If the breaker hasn't tripped and the thermostat is calling for cooling, the problem is likely inside the unit itself, in a capacitor or control board, and that calls for a contractor to diagnose.