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Look at the registers before you look at the equipment
Floor registers mean the ductwork is in the slab. Ceiling registers mean it is in the attic. Those two houses need completely different conversations, and the difference costs nothing to establish.
The calls we take most
No cooling in the heat
Diagnosed and priced before anything is fitted, with the repair figure given separately from any replacement figure so you can compare them yourself rather than take one number on trust.
Cold but sticky
A system that satisfies the thermostat quickly never runs long enough to take moisture out. We measure indoor humidity and cycle times before anybody suggests a larger machine, because a larger machine makes this worse.
A musty smell nobody can place
In a house with floor registers this is worth taking seriously rather than masking. It frequently comes from the duct system itself, and the honest answer is an inspection rather than a deodoriser.
Weak air at one or two registers
Measured, not guessed. Airflow at that register against the others, static pressure and return capacity. On an under-slab system a single weak register often means a collapsed or blocked run, which cannot be repaired from inside the house.
Annual service
Coils, drains proved by pouring water through, filter fit, electrical connections, charge against the manufacturer’s target and combustion testing, with the readings recorded so this year can be compared with last year.
Before you buy, sell or let
What is installed, how old each unit is from its serial number, what condition it is in, what putting it right would cost — and, specifically here, whether the ductwork is under the slab and what state it is in.
Four things a general inspection will not tell you
None of them is difficult and none of them is usually included.
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1 — Where the ductwork actually runs
Floor registers mean under the slab. It is a thirty-second observation and it changes the cost of everything that follows, and it is very rarely written down anywhere in a transaction.
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2 — What the inside of those ducts looks like
A camera down a floor register answers it in an hour. Dry and sound, or standing water and corrosion, are two completely different houses at the same asking price.
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3 — The real age of the equipment
Off the serial number, not off the sticker or the seller’s memory. Five minutes, and it is the number every subsequent decision rests on.
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4 — Whether the system can actually hold the house
Measured on the day: airflow, static pressure, charge against target and temperature split. “Appeared operational” in an inspection report means somebody turned it on.
Two free things before anybody prices equipment
Set the fan to auto. If your thermostat fan is on rather than auto, the blower runs between cycles and re-evaporates the water sitting on the coil straight back into the house. It costs nothing to change and in this climate it is the commonest self-inflicted humidity problem there is.
Time the cycles on a hot afternoon. Twenty to thirty minute runs are healthy. Ten minutes on and ten off, repeatedly, means the system is satisfying the thermostat before it has dried anything — and that is an oversizing symptom, not a reason to go larger.
If both of those are right and the house is still clammy, then it is worth measuring properly: airflow over the coil, charge against the manufacturer’s target, duct leakage and outside air. In that order.
Four things we say to homeowners here
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Duct cleaning is not the answer to an under-slab problem
We do not offer it, and on a deteriorated in-slab system it can make matters worse. The whole reasoning is on the ducts under the slab page.
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Bigger is worse here, not safer
An oversized system satisfies the thermostat before it has dried anything. In Gulf coast air that is the difference between comfortable and merely cold.
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Age alone is not a reason to replace
A system that holds its charge, moves the air it should and passes its safety checks works, whatever the year on the label. Age changes the arithmetic on an expensive repair and nothing else.
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A gas appliance with no carbon monoxide alarm is the one urgent item
Everything else on this page can wait for a convenient week. That cannot. Fit one, and have the combustion tested and the heat exchanger inspected.