The answers we would want if we lived in your house
Longer answers live on the service pages: AC repair and heating repair. Everything else starts with a free, no-obligation estimate.
What should I do first when the AC quits on a 110-degree day?
Start with the cheap list: thermostat set to cool and below room temperature, filter in place, breaker untripped, outdoor unit clear of anything a dust storm left against it. Then call Call for same-day help, and say who is in the house. If someone elderly, ill, very young, or asleep for a night shift is inside, say that first, because it places your call at the front of the day. Close the blinds on the west side, run ceiling fans, and do not open windows at noon to test the breeze; at 110 outside, the breeze loses.
Someone in this house works nights and sleeps days. Does that change anything?
Yes, and say so when you call. In a 24-hour city, a no-cooling call at noon on a day sleeper's house is the same emergency as a midnight call anywhere else, and this crew orders the day that way. It also changes the diagnosis: when the complaint is one bedroom, the room is the patient. Delivery to that room, the load on that room, and the system's afternoon capacity get checked as a room problem, not averaged into a house that reads fine on the thermostat.
The system runs all day and the house will not cool down. What is going on?
It is working and losing, and the loss has an address: a charge low enough that the coil cannot carry its load, airflow strangled by a dust-matted coil or a loaded filter, or a house gaining heat through stucco and glass faster than a healthy system can remove it in the afternoon. A fourth possibility lives on the growth edges: a unit sized for the house as built, in a house that has since gained rooms and west-facing glass. Which story is yours comes out of the diagnosis in order, coil and airflow before charge, charge before compressor.
What does the desert do to an air conditioner that other climates do not?
Load and dust. Load: a system here runs twelve or more hours a day for months, at outdoor temperatures that sit above the equipment's design assumptions for weeks at a time, and parts rated in cycles wear out on a Las Vegas calendar, not a national one. Dust: the outdoor coil collects it a layer at a season, capacity falls a little each year, and the failure announces itself on the first true heat wave, when the lost capacity is suddenly the whole story. Monsoon storms compress the process into a single night of dust and debris.
The unit is on the roof. Should I tell someone that on the phone?
Yes. A rooftop package unit is a different machine from a ground split system: heating and cooling in one cabinet, the full desert sky for a neighbor, and duct connections that weather alongside the equipment. Telling Carla on the phone changes what the visit expects to find, what the diagnosis checks first, and how the day's route books the call. In the older valley it is the standard layout, and the crew treats it that way.
Our house sits empty part of the year. Anything special to worry about?
The valley is full of snowbird and rental houses that sit closed for months, and a closed house hides its failures. A capacitor that died in September reports in June, at full occupancy, in the worst week of the year. Before a closed season ends, it is worth a start-and-listen check: run the system for an hour, confirm it cools and holds, check the filter, and look at the outdoor coil. If anything sounds or reads wrong, the repair conversation is far cheaper in April than in July. The same applies to a rental standing empty between tenants, where the failure would otherwise meet the new tenant first.
How much does an AC repair cost in Las Vegas?
Most AC repairs here run $200 to $900. The most common jobs: a capacitor typically runs $150 to $350, a refrigerant leak repair and recharge $600 to $1,800, and a condenser fan motor $250 to $700. A new system, installed, typically runs $5,000 to $10,000. The full table is on the AC repair page. Those are planning numbers. Your number comes with the free estimate, after the diagnosis, and it is the number for the whole repair.
Why does the same repair cost different amounts at different houses?
Tonnage, refrigerant type, age, and placement. A capacitor in a ground unit under a patio cover and one in a rooftop package unit baking on a ranch roof are the same part class at different labor. Refrigerant for an older system costs more than for a current one, which changes the math on leak repairs. A serious quote names the placement and the refrigerant when it names the price. If it does not, ask, because the difference is in the answer.
The furnace has not run since March. It quit on the first cold night. Is that a coincidence?
It is the valley's most predictable call. Heating parts fail quietly during the nine months the furnace is an air handler, and the first cold night is the first proof run since spring. Ignitors, flame sensors, and boards that were marginal in March are done by November. It is worth firing the heat for ten minutes on the first cool evening of fall, while a failure is a scheduling problem instead of a midnight one.
Do heat pumps really work in a desert winter?
Yes, and most of the time they are the right tool: a machine that moves heat instead of making it, across a winter of 45-degree nights, is efficient and unremarkable. The strain shows on the coldest nights, in the 30s and below, when runs get long and the backup heat stage carries part of the load. That is design, not failure. Ice that never clears during the defrost cycle, a house losing ground hour by hour, or backup heat running alone for days: any of those is a call, and it is a heating repair call, not a wait-and-see.
Can one company stay good at both cooling and heating here?
We think the honest shape is exactly what this site says: two services, and the valley as the whole territory. Cooling is the long season and the deep one. Heating is short, sharp, and almost entirely at night, on systems that have been idle for months. A three-person crew that does only those two jobs, in one valley it knows by chapter, is a stronger claim than a long menu. It is also, not coincidentally, why there are exactly two services here.
The house is a rental. Who calls, and what do I need?
Whoever holds the keys and the problem can call. Tell Carla it is a rental, and whether you are the tenant, the owner, or the manager. For tenants: your job is an accurate description of what the system is doing and who is in the house; the approval conversation belongs to whoever owns the equipment. For owners and managers: a standing note in the call, about who approves what, saves an hour on the day the system actually quits.
What does the estimate cover, exactly?
The diagnosis, explained in the order it was worked, and the price of the repair it supports. It is free, hassle-free, and no-obligation. Nothing is repaired before you have approved the price, and no is a complete answer. The estimate is a conversation starter, and the conversation is the point.
How fast can you get here?
Most Las Vegas calls are seen the same day, worked in triage order: a house without cooling with someone vulnerable in it, or a day sleeper in a warming house, goes first, then the valley chapter by chapter. When you call, Carla will tell you where your call sits in the day and why, and a realistic window with it. A company that promises an exact hour to every caller is guessing at your expense; an order you can see is worth more.