HVAC in Albuquerque is a roof cooler and a furnace that trade shifts, sometimes in the same day. The cooler works because the air is dry and the night will help. It quits being comfortable when monsoon humidity climbs, the pads smell, and the house goes clammy. Refrigerated systems in newer houses are a different machine and a different failure: weak cooling, a frozen line, a capacitor, a clogged condensate that stains a ceiling. The furnace is not a backup you can ignore. Clear nights in winter and in the shoulder seasons drop hard enough that no heat is a morning emergency.
Say which box you have. Cooler calls name water on the roof, a dead pump, a bad belt, or a curb that leaks whenever the unit runs. Refrigerant calls name the outdoor unit and the symptom. A filter packed with spring dust can fake a compressor failure, so ask what is ruled out first. If the ceiling is wet, say whether the cooler was on. That splits the roof trade from the cooling trade faster than a long story.
No heat needs its own sentence. Does the furnace try, or is it silent. Ask whether the heat exchanger and the flue are part of the look. Many older houses have awkward ductwork or almost none, because they were built around a cooler. A plan to add refrigerated air is not a swap of one box. Ask that directly. Ask where condensate will go so the next clog misses the plaster.
Shoulder season is the local test. You can want the cooler after lunch and the furnace before dawn, and a plan that solves only one of those will feel wrong for half the day. Say whether yesterday actually did both. A foothill lot drops faster than the valley floor, so name the side of town with the symptom.
Service the cooler before the hot afternoons and the furnace before the nights turn. If you are uncomfortable now, the calendar is not the boss. Call the number on this page.