AC installation is the design and fitting of an air conditioning system into a space that has not had one before — new construction, a home addition, a converted garage or lanai, or a house that has never had ducted cooling. TLS Air Conditioning designs the system by calculation, pulls the permit and commissions the result.
Every TLS installation starts with a free in-home survey and a room-by-room Manual J load calculation, and you leave that visit holding a fixed written price. We pull the mechanical permit, meet the county inspector at your house and hand you the measured start-up readings when the system runs for the first time.
Most new systems in this market run $6,000 to $16,000 installed. The in-home estimate is free and the price we write down is the price you pay.
Call 941-269-3433. Florida State Certified contractor, licence CAC1822364, with more than 500 residential AC installations behind us.
Swapping a failing system for a new one is a different job with different arithmetic, and it lives on our AC replacement page.
A new AC installation runs through seven stages: an in-home survey with a Manual J load calculation, Manual S equipment selection, Manual D duct design, the mechanical permit, the installation itself, the county inspection, and commissioning. Retrofitting an existing house takes one to two days. New construction runs three to six days across the build schedule.
Most of that sequence happens before anyone touches your house. The design work decides whether the system holds 74°F at 50% relative humidity in August or merely blows cold air at a thermostat, and it is the part of a quoted price a homeowner never sees.
A Manual J load calculation is the ACCA procedure that measures how much heat a specific house gains, room by room, and converts it into the exact cooling capacity that house needs in BTU per hour. It models walls, roof, windows, doors, floors, air infiltration and the heat given off by people and appliances.
Window orientation and glazing, ceiling height, attic insulation depth, how many people actually live there, where the sun lands at four in the afternoon — every one of those is an input. Two identical floor plans on the same street can need different equipment because one faces west. The output is a figure in BTU per hour, per room and for the whole house, and everything after it depends on that figure being right.
Manual S is the ACCA procedure that selects real equipment against the Manual J load, using the manufacturer’s performance data at Florida operating conditions rather than the headline rating on the box. For single-stage cooling equipment it sizes total capacity at roughly 95% to 115% of the calculated design load.
Moisture removal accounts for 30% to 50% of the total cooling load in a Florida house, against 20% to 30% in a dry climate, so two units of identical tonnage behave completely differently in Pinellas Park. Manual S selects for the split between sensible and latent capacity, and that data lives in the manufacturer’s expanded performance tables rather than on the AHRI certificate. Skipping it is how a correctly calculated load still ends up with the wrong equipment on the pad.
Manual D is the ACCA procedure that sizes every duct run in the system from the room-by-room airflow the Manual J calculation produced. It sets trunk and branch diameters, fitting types and total equivalent length so that each room receives the cubic feet per minute it was designed to receive, at a static pressure the blower can actually deliver.
A duct system designed by eye is the commonest reason a new air conditioner disappoints the person who bought it. The equipment is fine; the back bedroom sits four degrees warmer than the living room because its branch is undersized and forty feet long. Our Temperature Selection Guarantee covers exactly this — every room cools evenly on ductwork TLS installed. Ducts that already exist and are already the problem are duct replacement, not a design question.
A mechanical permit is required for a new AC installation everywhere in TLS’s ten-county service area, and the licensed contractor pulls it rather than the homeowner. Permit fees in this market run about $150 to $500 depending on the county. Pinellas runs roughly $160 to $350 and Hillsborough roughly $150 to $340.
Florida requires a Notice of Commencement on residential work over $15,000, which a first-time central system with new ductwork frequently exceeds.
Installation day on a retrofit runs six to ten hours for a straightforward system and one to two days where new ductwork is involved. New construction is different: the rough-in of ducts, refrigerant lines and electrical takes one to two days, then the system waits for drywall and finishes before trim-out and start-up.
The outdoor unit is set on a pad and anchored against wind load. The line set is new, brazed under flowing nitrogen and pulled into a deep vacuum before refrigerant enters it. The condensate line runs at the code slope of one-eighth of an inch per foot and is insulated to R-3 through unconditioned space, because a Florida attic will sweat a bare drain line onto a ceiling. Drop cloths and shoe covers go down before the first tool comes in — the Better Than We Found It Guarantee, written down.
A county inspector visits after the installation and checks the work against the Florida Building Code: refrigerant line routing and brazing, the electrical disconnect and its amperage rating, condensate drain placement and the overflow safety switch, equipment clearances, and the air handler and duct installation.
Commissioning is the measured proof that the installed system performs the way it was designed to perform. TLS measures static pressure against the manufacturer’s design specification, airflow in cubic feet per minute per ton, superheat and subcooling to confirm the refrigerant charge, and the temperature split across the evaporator coil. The readings go on your paperwork.
Static pressure is measured on every TLS visit, including a fifteen-minute service call. A brand-new air conditioner on ductwork it cannot breathe through will short-cycle, ice its coil and fail early, and the handover readings are what prove yours is not doing that. Then the handover itself: how the thermostat works, where the filter goes and what size it is, what the warranty covers, and what your first year of AC maintenance looks like.
The in-home visit, the room-by-room Manual J and the written price cost you nothing and commit you to nothing. Courtney books it while you are on the phone.
A Manual J load calculation matters in Florida because the wrong answer here cannot be repaired later. An oversized air conditioner satisfies the thermostat on temperature before it has removed the moisture, so the house reads 74°F and feels clammy, and the compressor short-cycles its way to an early failure.
Tampa runs about 3,928 cooling degree days a year against a US average of 1,633 — roughly two and a half times the annual workload on identical equipment — at an average relative humidity near 71%. A design error a Minnesota system expresses as mild discomfort for three months a year is expressed here as mould, warping and a compressor that dies in year eight.
TLS started as a ductless mini split specialist, and that history is the reason we size by calculation rather than habit. A mini split has no duct system to hide a sizing error in, each head serves a defined space, and an oversized head is obviously wrong to the person sitting under it. Bringing that discipline to ducted central systems is what the company was built on — the rest of that story is on our about us page.
Sizing by square footage fails because square footage is one input out of about twenty. The rules of thumb — one ton per 500 or 600 square feet — ignore window area and orientation, glazing type, attic insulation, ceiling height, duct leakage, air infiltration and occupancy, all of which move the answer by a full ton or more.
The second rule of thumb is worse: matching what was there before. A system installed in 1998 was sized by the same guesswork, possibly for a house that has since had new windows, a new roof or a room added. Copying it copies the error and adds twenty-five years of drift.
Specifying half a ton above the calculated load as a safety margin is a specific Florida habit. In a climate where a third to a half of the cooling load is moisture, that margin is not insurance — it is the fault. TLS does not add it, and when a homeowner asks us to, we put the reason in writing before we do anything else.
An oversized system short-cycles: it starts, drives the air temperature down quickly, satisfies the thermostat and shuts off before the evaporator coil has had time to condense water out of the air. The house hits its setpoint and stays humid. Long cycles remove moisture; short cycles remove temperature only.
The comfort problem comes first: a cold, clammy house at 74°F that people try to fix by dropping the thermostat further, which makes it worse. Then condensation on supply registers, musty smells, and relative humidity sitting in the sixties instead of near 50%. Then the equipment problem — a compressor whose start current is the hardest work it does, asked to do that ten times an hour instead of twice.
Short cycling is also one of the commonest root causes behind an AC repair call on a system under ten years old — and none of it is repairable at the source. An oversized system is a design decision already made, and the only correction is different equipment, which is why the calculation happens before the quote.
TLS installs every major residential air conditioning brand — Trane, American Standard, Carrier, Bryant, Lennox, Rheem, Ruud, Goodman, Amana and York on ducted systems, and Mitsubishi Electric, Daikin, Fujitsu and LG on ductless. TLS is not a dealer for any of them, so the brand on your quote is whatever the Manual S selection produced.
Less separates these brands than the marketing suggests. Trane and American Standard come from one parent company, as do Carrier and Bryant, Rheem and Ruud, and Goodman and Amana, and the equipment shares platforms across the pairs. What genuinely differs is the length of the parts warranty, how quickly a part reaches Tampa Bay or Southwest Florida when something fails on a Saturday, and how the equipment behaves at part load — which is the one we weigh hardest, because part-load behaviour is what removes humidity from a Florida house.
We tell you which two or three models the calculation permits, what separates them and what each costs, and you choose. If you have a brand preference already, say so at the survey; if the calculation supports it, that is what we fit. Ductless equipment is specified on a different basis and has its own page: ductless mini split system.
A new AC installation in Tampa Bay and Southwest Florida costs $6,000 to $16,000, driven mainly by system size. A 2-ton system runs about $6,000 to $9,500 and a 5-ton about $10,000 to $16,000. A first central system in a house with no ductwork runs $11,000 to $24,000.
Estimates for the Tampa Bay and Southwest Florida market, reviewed August 2026. These are ranges, not quotes — your exact price is confirmed in writing after diagnosis and does not move after that.
| System size | Typical house | Installed range |
|---|---|---|
| 2 ton | 900 – 1,300 sq ft | $6,000 – $9,500 |
| 2.5 – 3 ton | 1,300 – 1,800 sq ft | $7,000 – $11,500 |
| 3.5 – 4 ton | 1,800 – 2,500 sq ft | $8,500 – $13,500 |
| 5 ton | 2,500 – 3,200 sq ft | $10,000 – $16,000 |
| Variable-speed, high SEER2, any size | any | $13,000 – $19,000 |
Tonnage in that table is what a Manual J calculation typically produces for a house of that size in this climate. It is a starting point, not a specification — the calculation on your house is what we install to.
What moves a price inside those ranges:
Each of those appears as its own line on a TLS quote with its own price, so you can see what you are buying rather than a single number at the bottom of a page.
A first central air conditioning system in a Florida house with no ductwork runs $11,000 to $24,000. That is equipment and installation at $6,000 to $16,000, plus a complete duct system at $3,000 to $9,000, plus permit and electrical. Attic access and the number of rooms needing supply runs move it most.
Older Florida block houses with window units and no duct chases are the hard case. Sometimes no trunk route exists that costs less than the equipment, and in those houses a ductless mini split system delivers the same comfort for less money and less disruption. We say so on the estimate visit if that is what the house tells us, and we quote both so you can compare them side by side.
Yes. A TLS in-home estimate for a new AC installation is free, with no obligation and no deposit. A sales visit is our cost to carry, not yours. The visit includes the survey and the load calculation, and you leave it holding a written number rather than a range, a payment plan pitch or a discount that expires tonight.
Florida law also limits what a contractor can do with your money before work starts. Under Florida Statute § 489.126(2), a contractor who takes an initial payment of more than 10% of the contract price must apply for the necessary permits within 30 days and start the work within 90 days of those permits being issued. A large deposit followed by silence is not merely poor service; it is a statutory breach with a defined remedy. Book the visit at 941-269-3433 or through our free estimate form.
A TLS estimator measures the house, runs the Manual J and leaves you with a fixed price and no deposit taken.
Yes. Every new AC installation in Florida requires a mechanical permit, and the work is inspected against the Florida Building Code before it is signed off. A licensed contractor pulls the permit under their licence number. Homeowners may pull their own under the owner-builder exemption, but that transfers full legal and financial liability to them.
Pinellas County allows a homeowner to permit work on their own single-family or two-family residence below a stated value threshold, on the condition of full-time direct on-site supervision of all work. An owner-builder permit means the homeowner, not the installer, answers to the inspector, to the insurance carrier and to the buyer’s attorney at closing. Unpermitted equipment surfaces at resale and at claim time, and bringing it into compliance afterwards typically costs $1,500 to $4,500 on top of the original permit fee.
An unlicensed installation is not an enforceable contract. Under Florida Statute § 489.128, a contract entered into by an unlicensed contractor is unenforceable in law or equity by that contractor. On a five-figure installation that matters more than on any other job in this trade: the cheap quote from someone working under another company’s licence, or under none, leaves you with equipment nobody will warrant and work no county has inspected.
Under Florida Statute § 489.119(5) a licence number must appear in advertising, which is why ours is on every page of this site.
Florida sits in the federal Southeast region, where the minimum efficiency for a new split-system air conditioner is 14.3 SEER2 below 45,000 BTU per hour and 13.8 SEER2 at 45,000 BTU per hour and above. Those minimums have applied to equipment installed since 1 January 2023. Anything installed today meets or exceeds them.
SEER2 replaced SEER as the rating method, tested at a higher external static pressure that better reflects real ductwork, so a SEER2 figure is roughly 4.5% lower than the old SEER figure for identical equipment. A unit advertised at 14 SEER under the old method is about 13.4 SEER2 under the new one.
Going above the minimum is an arithmetic question. Run hours here are high enough that a step up in efficiency pays back faster than almost anywhere else in the country, and a variable-speed system runs longer, gentler cycles that pull far more moisture out of the air than a single-stage unit of the same tonnage. Where humidity is the actual complaint, that behaviour is worth more than the label.
New residential air conditioners installed in 2026 use R-454B, an A2L refrigerant with a global warming potential of about 466 against R-410A’s 2,088. A new installation gets a new line set sized, cleaned and pressure-tested for R-454B, so none of the retrofit compatibility questions that affect older systems apply to it.
A2L means mildly flammable, the lowest flammability classification above non-flammable. R-454B needs high concentration, a strong ignition source and still air simultaneously to burn, and a correctly installed residential system produces none of those. A2L equipment carries refrigerant leak detection in the indoor unit under UL 60335-2-40, and shuts down and circulates air if it detects a leak.
The R-410A phase-down under the AIM Act is a real problem for an existing system and a non-problem for a new one. An EPA rule effective 27 July 2026 permits installation of R-410A equipment manufactured or imported before 1 January 2025 until stocks are exhausted, and R-410A production steps down each year toward roughly 15% of current output by 2036.
Install AC in an addition, converted garage, lanai or Florida room when the existing system has no measured spare capacity for it — which is almost always. Adding conditioned square footage to a system sized by Manual J for the original house leaves every room slightly warmer, because the equipment is now serving a load it was never selected for.
Extending the central system works when a fresh Manual J shows genuine headroom and Manual D shows a duct route that will carry the air — usually only where the addition is small, adjacent to the existing trunk, and the original system was sized generously.
A converted garage in Pinellas Park with an uninsulated slab and an attic above it is not the bedroom next to it, and a register off the existing trunk will not fix it.
A ductless mini split system is the normal answer for a converted garage, a lanai enclosure or a bonus room. It needs no duct chase, it is zoned by definition, and it handles the problem those spaces share: far more heat gain per square foot than the rest of the house, on a different occupancy schedule.
You receive six documents: the completed room-by-room Manual J load calculation, the equipment submittal with model numbers and capacities, the signed mechanical permit and county inspection record, the commissioning readings taken at start-up, the manufacturer’s warranty running from your installation date, and an itemised invoice carrying the workmanship warranty term.
Two warranties cover a new installation: the manufacturer’s warranty on the equipment, typically ten years on parts, and the contractor’s warranty on the workmanship. In Florida, under Florida Statute § 559.957, the manufacturer’s warranty runs from the installation date rather than the product registration date when a Chapter 489 licensed contractor installs it.
You do not lose warranty length by failing to register. The statute states that a warranty of an HVAC system may not be conditioned in any way upon product registration, and that registration material must disclose that failing to return it does not diminish warranty rights or shorten the warranty. The registration warning printed in most owner’s manuals and repeated across the industry — send the card back inside sixty days or your coverage drops — has not applied to a licensed Florida installation since 1 July 2024.
The warranty transfers to a buyer, free. Under Florida Statute § 559.956, when you sell the house the manufacturer’s warranty transfers to the buyer and continues as though they were the original purchaser, and the warrantor may not charge a transfer fee.
What TLS adds on top. The Totally Happy Guarantee gives you a full year from installation to live with the system; if you are not happy, TLS removes it and refunds your investment in full. The No Lemon Guarantee replaces the entire system if two components fail within five years. The No Change Order Guarantee fixes the price at signing. All seven written guarantees, with their terms and their limits, are set out on the guarantees page and handed to you on paper with your estimate, before you sign anything.
Manufacturer parts coverage generally requires the system to be maintained, so keep the records — one of the quieter reasons annual AC maintenance pays for itself.
No. The federal 25C Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit and the 25D credit both ended on 31 December 2025 under section 70505 of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Property had to be placed in service on or before that date to qualify. There is no federal tax credit for a residential air conditioner installed in 2026.
Utility rebates still exist. Duke Energy and Tampa Electric both run residential efficiency rebate programmes covering qualifying high-efficiency equipment, with amounts running from a few dozen dollars to about $1,000 depending on the utility and the system. The terms change often, so we check the current offer for your address as part of the estimate rather than printing a figure here that goes stale.
Ask for the Manual J calculation in writing before you sign. A contractor who sizes a system by square footage, or by copying the old one, has skipped the only part of the design that cannot be corrected later. Then check the licence at myfloridalicense.com, confirm the crew are employees, and confirm the price is fixed.
Will you perform a Manual J calculation on my house, and will you give me a copy? A quote produced from square footage at the kitchen table is a guess with a total on it. TLS answer: yes, room by room, attached to the quote.
Have you measured static pressure on my ductwork, and does the design account for what you found? New equipment on undersized ducts is a new problem, not a solved one. TLS answer: yes, with a manometer, on every visit including a fifteen-minute service call.
Is the person installing this an employee of your company? TLS answer: yes. A TLS installation crew is made up of TLS employees, each background checked, live scanned and drug tested, each completing 150 hours of training a year. No part of an installation is subcontracted, which is why the crew that fitted your system is still the crew answering for it in year three.
Is this number fixed, and what happens if you find something? TLS answer: fixed in writing under the No Change Order Guarantee, and anything missed at design stage is ours to carry.
Run the licence check on us before you run it on anyone else:
It takes about thirty seconds. Do it for every contractor you invite into your house.
TLS Air Conditioning installs residential systems across ten Florida counties: Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco, Hernando, Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee, Collier and DeSoto — 151 communities from Tarpon Springs to Naples. The company works from one building at 6210 44th St N in Pinellas Park and runs the same crews and the same price list across all ten.
Permit fees vary by county and municipality, and coastal parcels in Lee, Collier, Charlotte and Sarasota carry wind-load and corrosion considerations inland Pasco and Hernando do not. Homes on the barrier islands and within a mile or so of open water get coastal-grade coil protection specified at design stage rather than discovered at year four. We pull the permit wherever the house is.
Residential homeowners only. We do not install commercial air conditioning.
Homeowners in Tampa Bay and Southwest Florida ask these questions most often before booking a new AC installation — sizing, timing, brands, and what happens when the house has never had central cooling.
Call 941-269-3433 and Courtney will book the visit while you are on the phone. Office hours are Monday to Friday, 8:00am to 5:00pm, and the line outside those hours is answered by a TLS employee rather than an answering service.
The visit is free, it includes the survey and the room-by-room load calculation, and you get a written number with no obligation and no deposit taken. Prefer to type? Use the free estimate form and we will call to confirm a time.
TLS Air Conditioning · Licence CAC1822364 · 6210 44th St N, Pinellas Park, FL 33781 · Contact us