Start where the failures actually live. Airflow first: a filter past its life, a blower struggling, or returns blocked by furniture starves the coil, drops cooling, and eventually freezes it. A surprising share of no cooling calls end at this step, which is why any diagnosis that skips it and opens with a compressor is out of order.
Englewood's chapter of the cooling guide adds altitude to the standard order. The air a system moves at 5,300 feet carries less heat per cubic foot than the same air at sea level, so marginal charge and tired airflow announce themselves here a season earlier than they would in a lowland suburb. Filter, capacitor, charge, ducts still runs the order; the local correction is that borderline readings are verdicts at this elevation, not passes.
Electrical second: the capacitor and contactor are the small parts that start big motors, and they fail on the hottest days because that is when they work hardest and longest. Gauges third: refrigerant charge is measured, and low charge means a leak to find, because refrigerant circulates in a sealed loop and is never used up.
Ducts last and often: cooled air dumped into an attic through a separated run cools the attic faithfully while the house complains. If one end of the house never cools while the other overcools, suspect the air's road, not the machine making it.
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