Best AC Repair in Texas

AC repair is licensed work in Texas, not handyman work: under Texas Occupations Code Chapter 1302 it has been illegal since 1986 to perform air-conditioning and refrigeration service without the proper TDLR credential, and doing so is a Class C misdemeanor. The shop holds the Air Conditioning & Refrigeration contractor license; the person at your house should be a TDLR Registered or Certified ACR technician working under it, and anyone who opens the refrigerant circuit also needs EPA Section 608 certification. Verify both at tdlr.texas.gov.

Refrigerant cost has changed the repair-vs-replace math: R-410A production was capped under the EPA AIM Act at the start of 2025, and recharge prices on the millions of existing R-410A Texas systems have climbed 20–40% year over year. That makes the signature AC-repair scam — a refrigerant 'top-off' that ignores the leak — both pricier and more tempting to sell. An honest shop finds and fixes the leak before recharging and bills the actual refrigerant added by the pound, not a flat 'recharge' fee.

In the Houston metro a tune-up can be free: CenterPoint Energy's CoolSaver program covers a participating-contractor A/C tune-up — condenser-coil cleaning plus a refrigerant-level and airflow check, a roughly $150–$200 service — at no charge for residential electric customers whose system is at least a year old and still running. It won't fix a dead unit, but it's the cheapest way to catch a developing fault before a Texas summer turns it into an after-hours emergency call.