Air Conditioning in Smithville, ON

Smithville summers are humid as well as hot. We sit between two lakes, so the air carries a lot of moisture, and most people complain about the damp before they complain about the heat. An air conditioner that only drops the temperature will not deal with that.

This page is for you if your air conditioner has stopped, if it is old and struggling through another summer, or if one room in your house never gets cool.

We will tell you which jobs are worth paying for. Sometimes the best answer is to leave your system alone, and we will say so.

Air Conditioning Repair

The issue with no cold air from your AC unit in July will not fix itself. Call us and we will come as soon as we can.

Most AC breakdowns come down to four things: a failed capacitor, a slow refrigerant leak, a burnt-out fan motor, or a coil so dirty it cannot release heat.

We find the fault before we give you a price. If one part has failed, we tell you it is one part. We will not turn a repair visit into a sales pitch for a new system.

Dust matters more if you live outside town. Gravel roads and long driveways coat the outdoor unit, and a dirty unit looks a lot like a broken one. We clean it and test it before we tell you to replace anything.

→ More on what goes wrong when the cool air stops

AC Maintenance and Tune-Ups

A spring tune-up service is a quick job that prevents most of the emergency calls we get in July.

We clean the coils, check the refrigerant level, test the capacitor, clear the drain and change the filter. None of it is dramatic. Together it decides whether your system gets through a heat wave or quits in the middle of one.

Book your AC tune-up in April, before the first hot week. Everyone calls us on the same few days each summer. If you act on one thing from this page, it’s regular maintenance.

A yearly service also keeps your manufacturer warranty valid. Most people forget that until the day they need to make a claim. Greener Homes Club members get booked in first when we are busy.

Farms and houses on gravel roads need the outdoor coil cleaned more often than houses in town. The equipment is the same but the air is dirtier.

→ More on a spring service before the first hot week and what we check on a cooling tune-up

AC Installation and Replacement

Fitting a new air conditioner and replacing an old one are nearly the same job. Replacing adds about an hour to take the old unit out.

Getting the size right matters most, and bigger is not better. An oversized unit cools the air fast and then shuts off. It never runs long enough to pull the moisture out, so the house ends up cold and damp at the same time. That damp feeling is the complaint we hear most around here. A smaller unit runs longer and takes more moisture with it.

Most quotes skip the ductwork. Many older Smithville homes have ducts built for heating only, and those ducts are too narrow to carry the air a modern air conditioner moves. A good unit on narrow ducts will still cool your house badly, and buying a bigger unit will not fix it.

We check the unit and the ducts before we quote. If the ducts that carry it around the house are the real problem, we will tell you.

→ More on choosing and fitting a new air conditioner and swapping out a system that has had enough

When Replacing Beats Repairing Again

Contractors use a rough calculation, and it is worth knowing before anyone quotes you. Use the $5,000 rule: multiply the age of the unit by the cost of the repair. Above $5,000, most homeowners would put that money toward a new system instead.

A 12-year-old unit with a $500 repair gives you $6,000. Above the line, so a new system is worth pricing.

The calculation is blunt. It does not account for your house, your ducts, or how well the unit has been looked after. What it gives you is a number to argue from.

Older units cost more to run as well. Natural Resources Canada says replacing a unit more than ten years old can save upwards of 30 percent, and that an ENERGY STAR certified model uses 8 percent less energy than a standard one. (1)

Repair is the right answer more often than people expect. A newer unit with one failed part is worth fixing. So is an older unit that has been serviced every year and has broken down for the first time.

Should you replace the furnace at the same time? People ask us this a lot. You do save on labour when we do both in one visit, but only if the furnace is also near the end. Replacing a furnace that still works well saves you nothing. We will tell you which problem you have, and you can read about whether to do the furnace at the same time either way.

Ductless Mini Splits

Some rooms have no ducts running to them, so they never cool. It is usually an addition built after the original system, a sunroom, a finished attic, or a bedroom over the garage.

A ductless mini split cools that room without any ducts. It mounts on the wall, connects to a small outdoor unit, and heats as well as cools.

You can also cool one room at a time. Cooling the room you are sitting in costs less than cooling the whole house.

We fit these most often in Beamsville and Grimsby, in houses where someone added a room years after the original system went in. The room got built. Nobody extended the ducts into it.

→ More on cooling a room the ducts never reached

Thermostats

A smart thermostat will not make your house colder, and anyone who tells you otherwise is overselling it. What it does is run the system on a schedule that matches when you are home, and show you what it has been doing.

There is a rebate on installing smart thermostats. Ontario’s Home Renovation Savings Program gives $75 to $100 back on a qualifying smart thermostat. (2) Small rebate, small job, and most people never claim it.

They help most in two-storey Smithville homes where the upstairs and the downstairs are never the same temperature. A schedule will not fix that on its own, but it helps, and it shows you how big the gap is.

→ More on smart thermostats and the rebate on them

Heat Pumps That Cool As Well As Heat

A heat pump is an air conditioner that also runs backwards. In summer it cools your house like a normal air conditioner. In winter it heats it instead.

That matters most when your air conditioner is already near the end, because a heat pump replaces it rather than sitting beside it. If you are buying cooling anyway, get a price for both.

→ More on one system that cools in summer and heats in winter

About the Refrigerant Change

If you have an air conditioner in your basement right now, nothing in this section means you need to replace it.

New systems use a different refrigerant from the one most existing air conditioners run on.

Federal law controls refrigerants in Canada. Those rules cover importing, manufacturing and supplying the refrigerant itself. They do not cover the equipment already in your basement. (3)

Your system keeps working, and we can still service it.

We say this because some companies use the refrigerant change as a sales tactic. If someone tells you your air conditioner is obsolete and must go today, be skeptical and get a second opinion before you sign anything.

When you do replace it one day, the new refrigerant comes with it. Nothing to decide now, and no reason to rush.

What Affects the Cost of a New System

We do not put prices on our website. Every house is different, so one published number would mislead more people than it helps. Six things decide what yours costs.

The size of your house. We measure and calculate how much cooling it needs. We do not guess.

Your ductwork. The biggest factor on older Smithville homes, and the one most likely to change your price.

Your electrical panel. Older panels sometimes need work before a new system can go in.

Access. Where the outdoor unit sits, and how far the pipes run to reach it.

The efficiency rating. A higher-rated system costs more to buy and less to run.

Removal. Taking the old unit away and disposing of it the way the law requires.

People often ask which brands to avoid. The brand matters less than you would think. A mid-range unit fitted correctly outlasts an expensive one that was the wrong size, low on refrigerant, or joined to ducts too narrow for it. Ask about the installation, not just the badge.

We are a Ruud Pro Partner. Call us and we will price your house properly instead of guessing on a website.

Getting Ready for a Niagara Summer

Five things, and the first three matter most.

• Book the tune-up in April, not the week it hits 30 degrees Celsius
• Change the filter. A blocked filter makes the whole system work harder
• Keep the outdoor unit clear of long grass, leaves and shrubs
• Deal with the damp, not just the heat. Moisture is what makes a Niagara summer uncomfortable
• Use blinds and shade. They help more than people expect, and they cost nothing

We can handle the first three tasks in one visit. The last two are yours.

If your house is not keeping up this summer

Call us and tell us what the system is doing. Warm air, switching on and off too often, one room that never cools, or a hydro bill that has climbed? We can usually work out the likely cause on the phone, before anyone commits to anything.

We are TSSA certified, we hold the Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Mechanic 313A, and we have been a family business in Niagara since 2014. You can see keeping a Niagara home comfortable all year across Smithville and the surrounding towns.

References

1. Natural Resources Canada, ENERGY STAR certified central air conditioners, natural-resources.canada.ca
2. Save on Energy, Home Renovation Savings Program, saveonenergy.ca
3. Government of Canada, Ozone-depleting Substances and Halocarbon Alternatives Regulations (SOR/2016-137), laws-lois.justice.gc.ca