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Two-storey, attic ducts, a hot inland summer, and a system that was probably handed over by somebody working to a builder’s schedule.
We take the numbers before we form an opinion
On any comfort complaint, and on any system we have not seen before, the visit starts with measurements rather than with a diagnosis. Superheat and subcooling, static pressure, the temperature split across the coil, and delivered airflow at the registers that are actually being complained about.
Those four take about half an hour and between them they will tell you whether the charge is right, whether the system can move the air it was designed to move, and whether the problem is the machine or the ductwork. Without them, everything that follows is a guess with a van outside.
Six things
No cooling, no heat
Checked in order of cost. Capacitors, contactors, float switches, filters, thermostats and breakers before anything expensive is on the table.
Commissioning check
On a system somebody else installed. You get the sheet you should have been given, and an honest answer about whether it is set up correctly.
Annual service
The same measurements every year, recorded, so drift is visible rather than described.
Duct testing
Leakage and static pressure measured. An attic that reaches well over 140°F here makes a return-side leak expensive every minute the system runs.
The upstairs
Two-storey houses lose the top floor first. Usually duct sizing, a return path or a damper. All three are measurable before anybody buys capacity.
Replacement
Sized from the house, permitted, tested and commissioned — with the commissioning priced on the quote rather than assumed into it.
Not a complaint — an explanation
It was installed to a programme
A subcontractor on a tract is working to dates, and the charge, the airflow and the controls are the last things on the list on the last day. That is a scheduling problem rather than a skill problem, and it is why so many new houses here have systems that are never quite right.
Nobody gave you the sheet
You will have a manual, a warranty card and a thermostat. What you almost certainly do not have is a page with superheat, subcooling, static pressure and airflow on it. If you never had it, nobody knows what your system is doing.
It may still be under warranty
Before you pay anybody to correct it, find out whether the builder or the manufacturer is still responsible. A measurement is what turns that from a disagreement into a conversation, and we will do the measurement regardless of who ends up doing the work.
An overcharged system is as bad as an undercharged one
The common belief is that low refrigerant is the problem and topping up is the fix. In practice we find systems overcharged about as often as undercharged, and both are damaging — too much charge floods the coil, raises pressures and sends liquid back toward the compressor, which is the failure nobody recovers from.
The only way to know which you have is to measure superheat and subcooling with the system running at a steady state. Pressure gauges alone do not tell you, and neither does how cold the air feels at the register.