Architectural Designs

How long should it take for the house to cool after an AC repair?

For several months, the air conditioner hasn't been working properly, but it didn't become a huge problem until it quit entirely about three weeks ago. Since then, our house has become hotter than the outside most days (once the indoor temp reached over one hundred). We weren't planning on repairing it simply because we're in the process of a move, but once it got over one hundred and no one was able to sleep or pack and my poor son was absolutely miserable, we decided to get it repaired. So the guy comes over tomorrow and says to save us money and since we're moving he could give it a temporary fix. He worked on it for a while and left like three hours ago and the only room in the house that is even close to cool is the one room with a working ceiling fan and some windows opened. Our house is relatively small, a split story, three bedroom. But then I've never gone through losing AC entirely, so I have nothing to compare it to to figure out whether it should be cooler already or not. The vents seem to be blowing a very tiny bit of cooled air, but not blowing well. I mean he came over today, not tomorrow*

Public Comments

1. Hello Willa: A properly running unit should bring down the temperature of the space 1 degree every 8 minutes (+/- 2 minutes depending on heat load). To tell if the unit is running properly, take a thermometer and measure the temperature of the air going into the furnace (at the return grille) and then measure the temp of the supply air at a register near the furnace. You should see a 18 to 22 degree difference. A cheap fix would be to get a window unit at Wal-Mart or Home Depot and cool your son's room. You can take the AC with you when you move, or sell it at your moving sale.
2. If the unit has been running for 3 hours you should be cold by now. hold your hand up to the vent. Is the air coming out cool? Did this guy save you some money ,or steal your money?
3. Your home has been without air conditioning for quite a while and there is a great deal of heat stored in the walls (both inside and out) ceiling and floors, furniture and other contents, attic, air ducts, etc. My experience has been that after a proper repair a long out of service system in an average home will take more than 48 hours to absorb the excess stored (latent) heat. With a borderline repair and most likely leaky ducts it could take longer. Feel free to call your service guy and explain to him that you're not getting very much cooling. Perhaps he can do a little more to get you by, or perhaps after thinking about it he has another solution.
4. If the house has not had cooling for several days, then im my view your looking at 8-10 hours before the conditioned space reached optimal temp. What I would I I were you is take a temp reading out of a couple of vents if the discharge air is over 60 degrees you have an issue. Either dirty filter, low on charge or the supposed band aid fix (what ever it was) was nothing more than a quick fix to take your money. I would call the guy back. Band aid fixes are just that.
5. The house should be cooled only in matter of minutes, that if the repairman can repair that AC. Maybe your AC is already damaged and cannot be fixed again, but he didn't tell you the condition or the damage. Maybe you can check yourself and make sure he really did a repair.