Air conditioning crews working around the clock after early Fresno summer

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- With the hot weather coming early this year -- a lot of homes are unprepared.

Home air conditioners are being put to the test this week, and some are failing, leaving repair crews swamped.

"Any good company is going to be about a week behind," Steve Mendrin With Valley Air said. "If you can get it within a couple days you are doing really good. Installs for us are running about two weeks right now."

Clovis resident Mark Keppler had to sweat it out when his AC unit went out, but he's glad to be getting a new one installed now.

"Actually, it happened a week earlier and we were able to schedule this in a week and get it done, otherwise it would have been a trip to the coast," he said.

It's really tough on those with evaporative, or swamp coolers, which are not very effective when the temperature gets into the 90's

"A lot of the older clientele will have the evap, but as the temperatures get up to 108, like it may today, the humidity level rises and you are lucky if you are probably maintaining 95 to 100 degrees in a home sometime and that can really lead to some issues in our elderly," Medrin said.

Joseph Dudley relies on a swamp cooler but has a tip to make it work a little better.

"What you could do is freeze water bottles and put them at the bottom of your swamp cooler, it will drop the temperature another fifteen degrees or so," he said.

Of course, that's not too easy if your swamp cooler is on the roof. At Fresno Ag Hardware, the start of hot weather is the busiest time of the year.

"So, as soon as it creeps up to 95 people get really hot and they come in start buying fans, tons of water and even products like this, solar powered fan hat which when you are in the sun," Ian Williams with the store said. "The fan kicks on keeps you cool all day when you are working in the yard."