If the air conditioner is not working, check the electrical disconnect fuses outside as well as the circuit breakers in the basement. The basement fuses are only half of the story for an exterior AC compressor. There must also be an electrical disconnect outside that usually it has fuses. Pull those fuses out and check them with a continuity tester. If they are good, your next hope is possibly the furnace fuse. When the switch on the thermostat is set to “fan on.” Now does the fan on the furnace run? If it does, and the compressor outside is still quiet, that’s a bummer. The solution may now lie in the hands of the service man.
For those of you with good outside fuses and an interruptible air conditioner service, you may just be being interrupted. Check the light in the gray box next to the electric meter. If the red light is on, then you are off. Jump in the pool, if you have one, because you may be without AC for the next twenty minutes or so.