AC Maintenance in Great Falls, MT
Air conditioners here run from July through July, so June is the time for a tune-up. Tell us about your system, and a licensed contractor who covers Cascade County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
One month of real heat, and hail that comes hard when it comes
Great Falls doesn't ask much of an air conditioner most of the year. It really only earns its keep in July, when afternoons average 78°F. That's not brutal heat, but it means the unit sits idle for long stretches, then gets called on to run hard with little warning. A system that hasn't been checked can have a weak capacitor or low refrigerant that only shows itself the first hot week it's asked to work.
Cascade County has also logged 55 hail events and 134 damaging wind events over the past ten years, with hailstones up to 3 inches. That kind of weather hits the outdoor unit directly. Bent fins on the coil block airflow, and a cracked fan blade or dented cabinet can go unnoticed until the unit is running again in July. A maintenance visit checks the coil and cabinet for that kind of damage before the season puts the unit to the test.
- 1 months
- July through July, your air conditioner is on duty
- 78°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 55 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 134 wind events
- in ten years, and wind drives debris into outdoor units
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
Book your AC tune-up in June, before homes here start needing cooling in July.
- Jan
- Feb
- Mar
- Apr
- May
- Jun
- Jul
- Aug
- Sep
- Oct
- Nov
- Dec
A tune-up checks the refrigerant charge, cleans the coils, tests the capacitor and tightens the electrical connections.
Montana requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The license comes from the Department of Labor and Industry and it attaches to the contractor, not to the job. Whatever they're hired to do at your house, that same license is what's on file with the state. Montana does carve out an exception for small jobs. Work under $2,500 does not need a licensed contractor. Maintenance on an air conditioner can easily fall under that line, though a visit that turns up a bigger repair could run past it.
If the technician opens the refrigerant side of your air conditioner, federal law requires them to hold EPA Section 608 certification, no matter the price of the visit or which side of that $2,500 line it falls on. That certification is separate from the state license and it applies in every state. Montana's license is what stands behind the rest of the work.
Source: Montana Legislature
- What does AC maintenance include?
- A technician checks the refrigerant charge, cleans or checks the condenser coil, and tests the capacitor and contactor in the outdoor unit. Inside, they check the evaporator coil and the condensate drain, since a clogged drain is one of the more common reasons a system stops cooling in summer. They also check the filter and look at electrical connections for wear. Opening the refrigerant side of the system requires an EPA Section 608 certified technician, no matter who does the rest of the work.
- How often does an air conditioner need maintenance?
- Once a year, before summer starts. Great Falls only needs cooling through the summer months, but the unit still sits outside all year taking on hail and wind, so a check before the season starts catches anything that happened over the winter. With 55 hail events and 134 damaging wind events recorded here over the past ten years, a spring look at the outdoor unit is worth doing every year, not just when something seems off.
- Is AC maintenance worth it?
- Yes, because most AC failures trace back to something maintenance would have caught, like a dirty coil, a low refrigerant charge, or a clogged condensate drain. Summer afternoons here average 78°F, so a system that's losing efficiency has to work harder to keep up, and that shows up as higher bills before it shows up as a breakdown. Catching a worn capacitor or a coil that needs cleaning during a maintenance visit is a smaller job than dealing with a system that quit in the middle of a heat wave.