Steve with a new trainee came out to a house we rent to our son and his family - the unit was shutting off for awhile at the hottest times of the hottest days.
He quickly discovered that the unit had too much freon and extracted 2 pounds. The high pressure shutoff switch was being tripped. Now this confirmed a diagnosis that Hendel's A/C had made a few weeks earlier, but Hendel's had charged $89 for the service call but wanted about $80 to extract the extra freon. But Steve's price for (1) the service call, (2) the freon extraction and (3) hooking up a common wire so the thermostat did not need batteries anymore was $55. Total.
Now how did my system get too much freon? All I know is that freon was added 2 winters in a row because of freeze up. I have receipts for 1 pound added by Falcon Air Conditioning on 12/18/2015 and 1.5 pounds added by Hendel's Air Conditioning a year earlier on 12/30/2014. (These are just the facts and I am not drawing any conclusions.)
So Steve scheduled a checkup in November to troubleshoot my winter freeze up issue. He indicated it may be the expansion valve at the outside unit that is at fault and not the assumed low freon. But that is a check that needs to be done when the weather turns cold.
My son and family are happy because the air is finally working as it should and is more efficiently (13 amps instead of 15 amps). And I am happy because I have found an A/C company that I feel I can trust.