Fifteen questions that start with a storm, a well or a landlord

Most policies cover lightning as a named peril, but adjusters want evidence. Our technician photographs the scorched board and any blown fuses, notes the failure pattern, and writes up the cause on the invoice in plain terms. Lightning hits Columbia County almost daily in summer, so this is routine paperwork for us.

Yes. We inspect the equipment, state what failed and why, separating storm damage from pre-existing wear, and put it on company letterhead. If the condenser was crushed by a limb or flooded, we’ll also quote the replacement on the same visit so the claim has a number attached.

Ductless mini-splits are the usual answer: one outdoor unit, slim indoor heads, and a three-inch hole per room instead of soffits. High-velocity small-duct systems are the other route when heads aren’t wanted on the walls. In the downtown historic area, check placement of the outdoor unit against any visibility guidelines before the pad is poured.

Often, yes. Deed-restricted subdivisions commonly require the condenser in a side or rear yard and screened from the street. We read the covenants with you before the estimate and position the unit so it passes, which is cheaper than moving it later.

The condensate an air conditioner makes is pulled from the air, so the well doesn’t touch it. But a whole-home humidifier fed by well water scales fast, rinsing the outdoor coil with hose water leaves iron on the fins, and any water-cooled or open-loop geothermal equipment suffers. Tell us you’re on a well and we plan around it.

The tenant can schedule and let us in; the owner approves anything with a cost. We keep an authorization on file so a midnight no-cool call doesn’t stall waiting for you, up to whatever limit you set. The invoice and report go to you.

Leave it running, set around 78 to 80 in summer and a humidity ceiling if the thermostat supports one. Shutting the system off for a month in July invites mold. A thermostat that sends alerts for high humidity or a dead system is worth the money for a house with a hangar attached.

Almost never. A bigger unit short-cycles and leaves the house damp. The problem is usually duct: undersized runs, a single return in the hall, flex that has sagged in a 130-degree attic. We measure airflow at each register and fix the delivery before anyone talks about tonnage.

Belly-board duct is thin, often uninsulated, and gets crushed or torn by animals and settling. Cooled air ends up under the house instead of in it. Sealing and insulating that duct, or replacing it, is frequently the best money spent before any equipment change, and a qualifying heat pump may earn Clay Electric’s rebate.

No. The diagnostic fee is the same figure quoted to a customer near the shop, and there’s no mileage line and no after-hours surcharge. The drive is our cost of serving Columbia County, not yours.

Not necessarily. Below the mid-30s a heat pump needs help, and Lake City sees those mornings often. Trouble starts when auxiliary heat runs at 50 degrees, or runs all day, which points to a low charge, a stuck reversing valve or a thermostat set up wrong. A fall tune-up is where that gets caught.

It can. Columbia County sits on karst, and when a slab or pad shifts, the copper line set between the air handler and the condenser takes the strain. A slow refrigerant leak at a bent joint is the usual result. If the pad has moved, have the line set checked before summer.

Inside the city, yes: Lake City Utilities runs a natural gas system, so a gas furnace or a dual-fuel setup pairing a heat pump with a gas furnace is realistic. Outside the limits it means propane, which changes the economics; we’ll run both against an all-electric heat pump for your address.

For Lake City, yes. Pine pollen and oak catkins load filters and outdoor coils from late February through April. Change the filter monthly through spring, rinse the outdoor coil gently from the inside out, and consider a thicker media filter if the house has allergy sufferers.

Inside Lake City, Five Points and Watertown it’s FPL; most of the unincorporated county is Clay Electric Cooperative; the far west is Suwannee Valley Electric. We ask because each one runs a different rebate program and because co-op lines and city lines behave differently in a storm, which affects what surge protection we recommend.