AC Blowing Warm Air
in Richardson, TX

If the outdoor condensing unit shuts off or fails to start, the indoor blower keeps running but there's nothing removing heat from the refrigerant, so the system just circulates warm air. This can happen from a tripped breaker, a failed contactor, or a dead capacitor. Contactors are electrical switches that wear out from the constant starting and stopping, and units in Richardson that run 8 or more months a year go through them faster than the manufacturer's estimates assume.

When a refrigerant leak runs unchecked long enough, the system eventually runs almost dry. With no refrigerant circulating through the evaporator coil, no heat is removed from the air, and the blower pushes room-temperature air into the ducts. Systems in Richardson homes built in the 1980s and 1990s that use the older R-22 refrigerant are especially prone to this because R-22 is expensive and the aging copper lines are prone to slow leaks that go unnoticed.

The fan-only mode runs the blower without starting the cooling system, so air circulates through the house without being cooled first. This setting is easy to select by mistake when adjusting the thermostat, and it's the first thing to check before assuming a bigger problem. This is especially common after a power outage resets smart thermostat settings in the neighborhoods along Campbell Road that had power interruptions during spring storms.