One cooling company for coquina, concrete block and builder-grade stucco

Four kinds of house, four kinds of cooling call

St. Augustine is unusual among Florida cities because its housing was built in distinct waves that never overlapped much. Each wave came with its own idea of how to stay cool, and each one fails in its own way today.

The oldest wave is the city core: coquina and frame buildings in the Colonial Quarter, Victorian houses in Lincolnville, Flagler-era homes in the Model Land Company District. None of these were built with ductwork. Some have had ducts threaded through closets and dropped ceilings; many run ductless mini-splits or a high-velocity system, and the outdoor equipment has to sit where the Historic Architectural Review Board will allow it.

The second wave is the 1920s through the 1950s: Nelmar Terrace, Fullerwood Park, Davis Shores and Lighthouse Park. Bungalows and Colonial Revivals with plaster walls, crawlspaces, and in Davis Shores, a tidal flooding problem that has drowned more than one air handler.

The third wave is 1970s-to-1990s concrete block: St. Augustine Shores, St. Augustine South, most of Anastasia Island. Slab foundations, attic air handlers, flex duct that has been sagging for thirty years.

The fourth wave is the 2000s boom, and it’s the biggest. ZIPs 32080, 32084 and 32086 are each somewhere between 55 and 66 percent built in 2000 or later. World Golf Village, Murabella, Palencia and the Nocatee edge are full of stucco houses with builder-grade systems that are now fifteen to twenty years old.

Who calls us, by era

Historic-core owners usually call about a mini-split that has stopped draining or a retrofit duct run that has never cooled the upstairs. Bungalow owners in Fullerwood and Nelmar call about humidity, because plaster and old windows let moisture in faster than an oversized unit can pull it out. Block-ranch owners in the Shores call about a system that still runs but can’t keep up after 3 p.m. And the boom-era subdivisions call about the big failures: compressors, coils, the first replacement the house has ever needed.

Beachside and bayfront owners, from Vilano down to Crescent Beach, call about everything, sooner. Salt air shortens the life of a condenser noticeably, and the king tides that now flood low streets a dozen or more times a year have put more than a few outdoor units underwater.

Three scenarios from across the city

A Nelmar Terrace Craftsman that never dries out. The system is five years old and cools fine, but the house feels damp and the bedroom closets smell musty by August. The unit is a size too large for the envelope, so the thermostat is satisfied inside ten minutes, long before any real moisture has left the air. The fix is rarely a new system; it’s a blower speed adjustment, a dehumidifier tied into the return, or on the next replacement, a correctly sized two-stage unit.

A Davis Shores ranch after a king tide. Water came up through the street, into the garage and over the base of the air handler. The outdoor unit sat in brackish water for an afternoon. The homeowner wants to know what’s salvageable. Usually the answer is a careful inspection, replacement of anything with a motor or a circuit board that got wet, and a conversation about an elevated platform so the next tide misses it.

A Murabella two-story built in 2006. The original system has had its capacitor replaced twice and its coil once. This summer the compressor locked up. At that age and repair history the honest recommendation is replacement, and the FPL rebate for a qualifying high-efficiency unit installed by a participating contractor makes the timing better than it was a few years ago.

Call about your house

How a Cook’s visit runs

1. The call. A person answers at any hour. You tell us the neighborhood, the symptom and the age of the system if you know it. We dispatch from Palm Coast, about 24 miles away.
2. The arrival. Boots covered, drop cloth down if we’re going into living space. The technician looks at the whole system, not just the part you pointed at.
3. The diagnosis. Measured, not guessed: amp draws, pressures, temperature splits, static pressure across the duct system when airflow is the complaint.
4. The number. You get the repair price, or the replacement options, before any work begins. If the repair makes no sense on a system this old, we say that too.
5. The work. The majority of repairs are wrapped up in one trip. Installations are scheduled at your convenience, including evenings and weekends.
6. The handoff. A short walkthrough of what was done, what to watch for, and when the next maintenance should land.

What we promise and what we won’t

We promise a technician who can work on any major brand, a Lennox line we stand behind for installations, no after-hours surcharge, a free quote on replacement equipment, and satisfaction guaranteed on the work. We don’t promise a guess at the price over the phone, because a guess that turns out wrong helps nobody.

We also won’t tell you a 2006 system needs replacing when a capacitor will do, and we won’t tell you a dead compressor in a nineteen-year-old unit is worth fixing when it isn’t. The call is yours; the math is ours to lay out honestly.

Equipment we work on in St. Johns County

New equipment means Lennox, including the Healthy Climate air-quality line and the Ultimate Comfort System for whole-house control. For repair, we work on Carrier, Bryant, Trane and just about any other brand found in St. Augustine homes, including the package units on older block houses and the ductless systems that keep the historic districts cool. ENERGY STAR equipment and solar-compatible systems are both within our certifications.

Whatever decade your house came from, the first step is the same: tell us where you are and what the air is doing.