SAN ANTONIO GUIDE

Ask these questions before anyone opens the system

The upstairs is warm, a company can be there this afternoon, and the impulse is to say yes before the questions. Ask anyway. A long cooling season produces a lot of hurried yeses, and the attic is a bad place to discover you never learned who is licensed, who handles refrigerant, or whether the condensate drain is even in the scope. The equipment can wait a few minutes of plain talk. People who should not stay in dangerous heat should not wait. Those are different clocks.

By Mike Maziarz · Sources checked October 6, 2026 · How we write these guides

Look up the license before the visit

The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation licenses air conditioning and refrigeration contractors. Look the company up on the state’s air conditioning and refrigeration page before you let anyone open the system. Confirm the business name matches the truck and the invoice, not a similar name that shares a phone manner. A license is not a review score, and this site will not invent one. It is permission to do the trade, which you still verify.

Ask who is coming to the house and whether that person works under the licensed contractor. Ask for the license details in the written estimate so you are not photographing a magnet on a door and hoping. If the lookup does not match, stop. The afternoon heat is not a reason to skip a step that takes as long as boiling water. Older adults, infants, and anyone already ill should be moved to a cooler place while you sort the paperwork, not used as pressure to hire the first truck.

A scope with nouns, not a single total

Ask for the symptom they think they are solving, the parts they expect to touch, and the parts they will not open on this visit. Condensate drain, float switch, blower, outdoor fan, compressor, heat strips, and thermostat should be either in or out, in words. A lump sum with no nouns is hard to compare and easy to expand once the hatch is open and the attic is miserable.

Ask what happens if the diagnosis changes. A capacitor quote that becomes a condenser quote needs a pause and a new scope, not a nod from the hallway. Ask whether refrigerant will be added, recovered, or left alone. Ask whether the drain pan gets a real test or a glance. The clammy-house half of a cooling complaint, when moisture is the issue as much as temperature, is described in indoor humidity. Tell them if the air feels wet so they do not write a scope that only mentions degrees.

Attic access and the kind of system

Tell them the truth about access before they arrive. A pull-down stair over a Stone Oak garage, a narrow King William closet, a Monte Vista hatch with storage piled on the only decking, or a Pearl-area closet carved out of an older building changes the crew and the time. Southtown additions do not always match the original equipment location. Alamo Heights is a separate city and can still be the same physical problem. Surprising a technician at the hatch is how visits get rescheduled at the hottest hour.

Say whether you have a heat pump, a gas furnace with a straight air conditioner, or a system you cannot name. Heat pumps need both modes understood, including strips and emergency heat, which is why heat pump questions exist. If you only describe no cooling, a company may never look at heat. If you only describe no heat on a rare cold morning, they may never hear that the same machine failed in August. Give them both histories if you have them.

Permit, insurance, and the utility

Ask who pulls the permit if the City of San Antonio Development Services Department or Bexar County requires one for this scope. Ask for the permit number when they say it is filed. A state license does not file itself with the building office. Ask for proof of insurance the way any careful customer would, and read it rather than accepting a verbal yes. This page does not set the coverage amount. It tells you to ask and to walk away if the answer is theatrical.

CPS Energy is the city-owned electric and gas utility. The company you hire does not become the utility, and the utility does not become your contractor. If the outdoor unit is dead because the block is out, fix the outage conversation first. Gas emergency numbers stay on the bill. A contractor who tells you to ignore a gas smell until they arrive tomorrow is giving you dangerous advice. Leave, do not flip switches, and call from outside.

What you keep when they leave

Ask for model and serial numbers, the refrigerant name if the circuit was opened, the measurements they are willing to write down, and a statement of what was not inspected. A cooling visit that never entered the attic should say so. A maintenance visit that added refrigerant should say why. You want those sentences on paper or in a message you can find next year, not in a conversation beside a loud condenser.

Planned start-up work is a different hire from a breakdown. If you are booking before the long run, use the list in seasonal maintenance so the visit includes the drain, the coil clearance, and a heat test, not only a sticker. If you are hiring in a crisis, say that the scope is the failure in front of you. Do not let a breakdown invoice quietly become a replacement you have not compared. Two written scopes on the same equipment are how you choose. Star ratings are not, and this guide does not keep any.

Your side of the doorway

You can change a filter, set the thermostat, and clear debris outside once power is confirmed off. You cannot add refrigerant, open a burner box, or tape a safety switch as a way of testing a company. The boundary is in what to do yourself and what to leave. Doing the safe prep makes you a better customer. Doing the unsafe prep makes the diagnosis harder and can void the chance to see the original fault.

When the technician is in the attic, you still get to ask what they found before you approve the next hour. Hot weather is uncomfortable for them and for you. It does not erase the questions. If someone in the house is in distress from the heat, that is emergency services, not a reason to sign the largest option. Hire slowly enough to know the license and the scope, and fast enough that vulnerable people are not left in a closed hot house while you collect brochures.