AC Installation in Montgomery, AL
A new air conditioner in Montgomery will run from May through October every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Montgomery County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Six months of real heat, every year
Montgomery County runs its air conditioning May through October, six months a year. Summer afternoons average 91°F, and a new system has to hold that line day after day for the whole stretch, not just a week or two.
The county has also logged 34 damaging wind events and 11 hail events over the past ten years, with hail as large as 1.75 inches. The outdoor condenser sits right in the open for all of that, so where and how it gets installed matters. Any new central air conditioner installed today also has to meet the federal minimum of 14.3 SEER2.
- 6 months
- May through October, your air conditioner is on duty
- 91°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
- 11 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 Montgomery County compared with a new unit at the federal minimum.
Estimates for a typical Montgomery County home, from EIA household energy data, Alabama fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
Alabama requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The state license is held by the contractor, not tied to this one job. Alabama's Board of Heating, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration Contractors tests and records the people who hold it, and that record covers the contractor generally, not each installation that gets done.
For this job, that license is the thing standing behind the contractor's work. In most cities and counties, installing an air conditioner also needs a permit from the local building office, with an inspection once the work is finished. Where that applies, the inspection is where the installation itself gets checked, separate from what the license already tells you about the contractor.
Source: Alabama Board of Heating, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Contractors
- What size air conditioner does my house need?
- There's no single answer without a load calculation done for your house. A contractor works out the right size using your square footage, your insulation, how many windows you have and which way they face, and your ceiling height. An oversized unit cools the air fast but shuts off before it pulls the moisture out, so rooms feel damp and clammy even at the right temperature. An undersized one runs nonstop through Montgomery's long summers and still can't keep up on the hottest afternoons. Ask whoever quotes the job to walk you through the load calculation rather than sizing off the old unit alone.
- Should I replace the whole system or just the outdoor unit?
- If your indoor coil and outdoor unit weren't installed together, matching just the outdoor unit rarely works well. The coil and condenser are matched to move a specific amount of refrigerant, and pairing new equipment with an old coil usually means the system never runs at the efficiency it's rated for, and it can shorten the life of the new equipment. Age matters too. If the indoor coil is old enough that it's close to needing replacement anyway, or if it uses an older refrigerant that's being phased out, replacing both at once makes more sense than doing the job in stages. A contractor can check what refrigerant your system uses and whether the coil and unit are still a matched set before telling you which way to go.
- Do HVAC contractors in Montgomery need a state license to work on my home?
- Yes. Alabama requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license, issued by the Alabama Board of Heating, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration Contractors. Ask to see the license number before work starts, and you can check it against the board's records if you want to confirm it's current.