Read before you call, or read while you wait for the truck
Two kinds of pages live here: short symptom pages for what the system is doing right now, and longer guides for the decisions Putnam County homeowners face more than most.
Two kinds of pages
Problem pages begin with whatever the system is doing to you tonight, whether the registers have gone lukewarm, frost has crept up the copper, the unit will not stay running, the FPL bill doubled, or the breaker in the panel will not hold. Each ranks the likely causes for a Putnam County house, says what is safe to touch, and names the point at which to pick up the phone.
Guides go deeper on the decisions that come up constantly on the Putnam County route: how package units and belly ducts work in a manufactured home, what iron and sulfur well water does to condensate systems, how to think about repair versus replace when the budget is tight, what the Palatka Gas Authority furnace rebate involves, what to do with equipment after St. Johns River flooding, how to cool a historic-district house without ducts, the difference between Clay Electric and FPL for rebates, humidity control in Interlachen lake homes, crawlspace moisture and sweating ducts, and how to get one more summer out of an old system.
Written for Putnam County, not generic Florida
A guide that assumes a 2005 stucco house on city water is useless to someone in a 1965 block house on a well in Bostwick or a manufactured home in East Palatka. These pages come from what Sean’s crew sees on this route: hard water, package units, flood lines on the siding, lightning-killed boards and people doing honest math on a fixed income.
When reading should stop
If the house is dangerously hot for an older relative or a child, if you smell burning, if water is coming through a ceiling, or if a unit has been under river water, close the browser and call 866-266-5709. Dispatch answers around the clock, and the truck from Palm Coast costs the same at midnight as at noon.
Using these pages
Can I actually fix anything myself from these pages?
Some things. A tripped float switch, a clogged filter, a thermostat on the wrong mode and a frozen coil that needs to thaw are all homeowner-safe. Anything involving refrigerant, high-voltage components or gas is not, and the pages say so plainly.
Are the guides written for manufactured homes too, or only site-built houses?
Both, deliberately. With manufactured housing close to half the stock in parts of Putnam County, package units, belly ducts and crawlspace moisture get their own guide rather than a footnote.
Do you add guides after something like a river flood?
Yes. The flooding guide for Welaka and East Palatka exists because of Irma and Ian. When the next storm or a new rebate rule changes what Palatka homeowners need to know, the library grows.
- ProblemBreaker tripsThe three ways an air conditioner trips a breaker in this county, who calls about each, and how we find the cause rather than reset and hope.
- ProblemFrozen coilWhy a coil freezes in a 92-degree Putnam County summer, the checklist to run before you call, and the myth to ignore.
- ProblemHigh electric billHow to read a Putnam County electric bill against the weather, the three HVAC causes that explain most jumps, and the ones that are not HVAC.
- ProblemHumidityPalatka's old houses and new houses are damp for opposite reasons. The climate is the same; the fix is not.
- ProblemNew noiseA noise guide sorted by location rather than by sound: outside, in the closet, overhead, or in the walls, and what each means for tonight.
- ProblemShort cyclingWhy a system starts and stops every few minutes in Putnam County's manufactured and block homes, and what it costs to leave it.
- ProblemWarm or weak airWhy a running system stops cooling in Palatka's older block houses, what each cause costs to ignore, and when to shut it off.
- ProblemWater leakSorting condensate from floodwater, the four drain parts that fail, what well water does to them, and what to do before we arrive.
- GuideClay Electric vs FPLFPL in town, Clay Electric in the country, and a different rebate program on each side of the line. How to tell which you are on and what each one pays for.
- GuideCrawlspace moisture & sweating ductsDripping duct under the floor, soft spots in the hall, a smell that comes with the AC. Diagnosing crawlspace moisture and fixing it in the right order.
- GuideLake-house humidityTwo cottages on the same lake, same square footage, opposite results. The sizing and settings that keep a part-time house dry between visits.
- GuideDuctless in the historic districtsNot whether, but how. A South District two-story worked out room by room: heads, outdoor units, line-set routes and the end of the floor furnace.
- GuideOne more summerThe system is old, the money is tight, and the summer is coming. A month-by-month plan to get through it, and the signs that say stop.
- GuidePackage units & belly ductsHow a package unit and an under-floor duct work together, what goes wrong beneath the skirting, and three Putnam County homes worked out in words.
- GuideGas Authority furnace rebatePalatka has a municipal gas utility and it pays homeowners to switch to a gas furnace. How that compares with a heat pump for a town with a dozen freezes a year.
- GuideRepair or replace, budget firstA rung-by-rung guide for households where the repair bill competes with everything else. Three worked examples, in words, from around Palatka.
- GuideRiver flooding & your systemA slow river, a week of standing water, and the math on raising your equipment before the next time. Welaka and East Palatka as the examples.
- GuideWell water & your equipmentPicture a city-water house in Palatka and a well house in San Mateo with the same system installed the same month. Here is how they would look five years on.
Reading didn't fix it?
That's what {{phone}} is for, any hour, no after-hours charge.