Frozen AC Repair, Thawed and Fixed at the Root
Ice on an AC sounds wrong, especially in July. But it happens, and it happens for predictable reasons. The indoor coil gets too cold. Moisture from the air condenses on it. Then freezes. Then keeps freezing as the system keeps running. What started as a thin frost can turn into a solid block of ice on the coil and copper line within hours. By the time most homeowners notice (warm air at the vents, water on the floor near the air handler, an AC that runs without cooling), the freeze has already been building for a while.
Fixing a frozen AC has two parts: thaw it safely, then fix the reason it froze. Thawing is patient work. Turn the AC off, run the fan on its own, wait two to four hours, sometimes longer. The real repair starts after the ice is gone. We check refrigerant pressure, inspect the coil, test the blower motor and capacitor, look at the filter, and check the drain. Most freezes trace back to one of three things: restricted airflow, low refrigerant from a leak, or a coil that has not been cleaned in years. The U.S. Department of Energy explains how those systems work together, and that is what we test against. Skip the diagnosis and the freeze comes back. Maybe in a day, maybe in a week.
