Does your AC need repaired? Be prepared to wait

Jacob Thomas starts off his workday with a stack of service calls. He pulls out a cell phone and works through the assignments, setting up appointments to make the homes cool once again.

“Eight to 15, sometimes,” Thomas said when asked how many service calls he actually gets to through the course of another steamy weekday of fixing air conditioning units.

Thomas has repaired broken cooling units for six years and works at Five Seasons Heating & Cooling in Cedar Rapids. He said many of the units he is called out to have dirty filters and low freon levels.

“Sometimes they baffle me,” he admitted but, after years of doing this, Thomas said he can usually pinpoint a problem right away.

At one home in Cedar Rapids, Thomas eyes a unit that is decades old. The owner said the temperature inside his home hit about 85 degrees during the hottest weather this week.

“He does have a low Freon situation,” Thomas said as he dug under the unit cover. “He also did have a dirty filter.” He described this particular repair stop as fairly common, with a repair bill of about $100.

Thomas stepped inside the home for a temperature check as the repaired unit blew out cold air at a crisp 65 degrees.

Just where he likes it.

Owner Rick Sizemore said he is fielding between “50 and 100? calls each day, asking about service. He said his crews are working to get to every appointment as quickly as they can but customers could find a delay of three or four days.

While some repairs are common, not every stop is simple.

At the next appointment on his schedule, Thomas comes across a Lennox unit he knew would take a bit longer to fix. He pulled out a reciprocating saw to cut the end of a newly-installed motor. After about an hour of working behind the home, Thomas' work called for a $600 bill for the home's owner.

As the appointments add up, on warm days like this, so can the fatigue.

“It takes a hard toll on your body,” Thomas said. “Lots of sweating and it takes a lot out of you.”