AC Installation in San Marcos, TX
A new air conditioner in San Marcos will run from April through October every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Hays County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Seven months of Hays County heat is hard on a new system
Your air conditioner runs April through October here, seven months a year, with summer afternoons averaging 94°F. That is a long stretch for a compressor to carry, and it makes getting the size and installation right matter more than it would somewhere with only a few hot weeks to plan for.
Hays County has also logged 59 hail events and 36 damaging wind events over the past ten years, with hail up to 3 inches. Any new central air conditioner installed today has to meet the federal efficiency minimum of 14.3 SEER2, so that baseline is already built into what goes in.
- 7 months
- April through October, your air conditioner is on duty
- 94°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 59 hail events
- in ten years, and hail bends the fins on outdoor coils
- 13.4 SEER2
- the federal minimum any new unit must meet
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A higher-efficiency unit would save about $30 a year to run in Hays County compared with a new unit at the federal minimum.
Estimates for a typical Hays County home, from EIA household energy data, Texas fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
Texas requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
TDLR tests contractors before they get licensed and keeps a record of who holds one. That license belongs to the contractor, not to any single job, so the same license that qualifies them for a job across town qualifies them for yours.
For an air conditioner installation in Hays County, the license is what stands behind the person doing the work, but the local building office still has a role. Most cities and counties here require a permit for a new air conditioner and an inspection once it is installed, and that inspection is what checks the work itself, separate from the license.
Source: Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation
- What size air conditioner does my house need?
- The right size depends on your square footage, your ceiling height, how much shade your house gets, and how much insulation is in your walls and attic. There's no shortcut for this. A contractor needs to walk through the house and run a load calculation, because a unit that's too big will cool the house fast but shut off before it pulls the humidity out, and one that's too small will run constantly during those 94°F afternoons and still fall behind. Anyone who quotes you a size over the phone without seeing the house is guessing.
- Should I replace the whole system or just the outdoor unit?
- In most cases, if the outdoor unit is failing, the indoor coil and furnace need to be replaced with it. The outdoor unit and the indoor coil are matched to work together, and pairing a new condenser with an old coil usually means losing efficiency and sometimes voiding the warranty on the new equipment. The age of the indoor unit matters too. If it's old enough that it's likely to fail soon, replacing both at once can save you from paying for labor a second time down the road. A contractor can look at both units and tell you whether the coil is a match for new equipment.
- Do HVAC contractors in San Marcos need a state license to work on my home?
- Yes. Texas requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license, issued by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. Ask to see the license number before work starts, and you can look it up on the TDLR website to confirm it's current.