Why systems struggle
Ask anyone who services heating and cooling where the problems live and the answer is the same: rarely in the equipment, almost always in the loop around it.
- 1 Thermostat — The season’s odometer — a hundred cooling days pass through it.
- 2 Return and filter — The lungs, and the first thing a retrofit house sized too small.
- 3 Air handler and furnace — Up in the attic, asleep nine months, asked for everything in December.
- 4 Coil and condensate drain — Litres of river-valley moisture a day, leaving through one narrow line above your ceiling.
- 5 Attic ducts — The coldest air in the house, commuting through the hottest room on the property.
- 6 Outdoor unit — Full sun, full load — where August culls capacitors by the thousand.
The six
What this region does to a system
A city built on two kinds of foundation, so the ductwork runs overhead in one neighbourhood and underfoot in the next — with completely different failures. River humidity that makes drying the house half of every cooling job, and hands its water to one narrow drain above your ceiling. A spring that coats every outdoor coil in pollen. And equipment old enough that the refrigerant inside it can decide the repair. Most of what ends a system here traces back to one of those.