Wife and I live in a single-family house, built 1994, so the air-conditioning unit is now 21 years old.
In 2007 we had to have the refrigerant recharged, and the tech also administered some leak-stop; at the time, he told us that would probably only last 2-3 years.
Around 2010-2011, the condenser fan started screaming because of a dry bushing, so I disassembled/oiled it, and it’s been quiet since then.
So here we are now, 2015. Assuming I don’t want to wait until my air conditioning system breaks down completely (on a hot-as-hell day), is this fall a good time to replace it? Or would I likely be throwing away many more years of trouble-free service?
If you have an HVAC professional you trust, you could ask them to come out and evaluate it. We recently replaced our circa-1987 heat pump (2 BR condo) after leaky coolant froze it solid.
Replacing it a bit too early doesn’t seem like a problem to me – your new system will be a lot more efficient and save you money each month on power bills, but if you can, see what a trusted professional says about your unit.
I don’t know. I know that during my home inspection before we purchased the condo, the inspector said that the HVAC unit probably only had another year or two left of life, and he turned out to be correct, but I don’t know if this was based on his physical assessment or just his guess based on the age of the unit.
I would say it depends on how much money you have. It’s likely not cost-effective to replace it now (even if you save money on energy now, that’s energy savings that you would have eventually when you replace it anyway). If you’re wealthy enough that the thought of spending a couple of days in the heat while waiting for the HVAC guys to replace it is worth the few hundred to a thousand dollars that replacing it now is costing you, then by all means replace it.
Even if you don’t replace it now, one thing I would recommend doing at this time is researching all decisions that you might need to make if it breaks down - e.g. quality repair people, brands of a/c units etc. - so that you can make a decision in a hurry if you ever need to. Also, you might want to keep an eye out for major sales or rebates.
You’ve had the unit 21 years and only had it serviced a few times? I’m impressed. We have our furnace and a/c checked and serviced every year. Maybe I’m fooling myself, but I like to think regular maintenance on these systems, as on our vehicles, will keep them working at their peak and theoretically indicate problems before they become critical. Please don’t deprive me of my illusions…
I have been told by different HVAC techs in different states and working for different companies that any time over about 10 years is a bonus. When we bought this place 11 years ago, it had its original compressor (house was built in 1975) but we’re pretty sure the previous owners were far too frugal to turn on the air, so it probably didn’t have too many miles on it. However, 9 years ago, we replaced both the furnace and the a/c, and the difference in performance was definitely noticed.
As for your situation, if you decide to wait till it dies, you might consider getting a window unit, or a bunch of fans, to tide you over while your main system is dead. Especially if it dies in the midst of a heat wave - you could wait longer than you want. And I concur with doing your research now - get some free estimates from several companies. You don’t want to regret a choice made in haste and panic.
10 years is very low. I would say more like 20 years as the typical lifetime. My unit is 19 years old and still runs fine. We’ve had it repaired a couple of times (at a cost of about $250 or so each time) over the years. And it’s not one of the better brands either (York).
A lot of HVAC companies promote the annual “A/C tuneup” notion. I’ve never done it. I once got nervous about it and called up an HVAC guy to ask about it and he said “just turn it on and don’t worry about it”.
Good point. If I spend $3000 now instead of X years from now (when the current AC dies good and proper), I’ll be missing out on the ~8% per year I could probably earn if I invested that money. That’s about $240 per year for every year of wasted service from the current unit. I don’t know what my annual savings on electricity will be with a newer, more efficient unit, but I doubt it’s that much.
If it were entirely up to me, yes, I’d wait until the existing unit lets the smoke out before I replaced it. But then, it’s not entirely up to me; my wife is the one who is pushing to replace it before it breaks.
My new unit probably saves me more than $240 per year, but that can vary depending on the size of your home and various technical factors.
I imagine the math could be done for exactly what point before complete failure (1 year? 2 years? 3 months?) it makes economic sense to get a new system, but that might not help much since you can’t predict when your current unit will fail.
I am in a similar position with a ~25 year old Ruud unit, and I plan to run that sucker until it breaks and costs more than $500 or so to repair.
My electric bills are reasonable and it performs well so why spend money just to prevent possibly being hot for a few days if the old one breaks? We lived for thousands of years without AC, I can live for a few days without it.
Let’s assume that the average unit lasts 20 years but that this can vary. Now your two choices are to replace it now or wait until it breaks (in X years). If you replace it now, you will save money on energy for the next X years, but at that point you will own a unit with some of its useful lifetime gone (X/20, on average). By contrast if you wait, you will pay extra energy costs for the next X years, but at that point you will own a brand new unit, with a full expected lifespan ahead of it. The added cost to you is X/20 times the cost of a unit.
And as noted earlier, I think the energy savings will mostly wash out anyway. Because while you’ll save money on energy for the next X years if you replace it now, at that point you will begin to see negative energy savings under that scenario, because you’ll be running an older unit as compared to had you waited to replace it.
I’ve heard that the older units were built better and last longer. So the life of a system built 20 years ago will be longer than a unit built today. I recently had my 25-year-old unit replaced and all the HVAC guys were saying the new ones aren’t built the same. I have a 2nd 25-year-old unit which still works, but it’s to cool the downstairs and isn’t as stressed.
One mistake I made in maintaining my system was when the internal evaporator coil went out a few years ago, I replaced just the coil thinking that if the compressor went out I would be able to just replace the compressor. But when the compressor went out this year, I had to replace both. My system had the old freon, and they said they can’t flush it all from the old coil. I should have replaced the compressor when I replaced the coil.
One advantage you have with a working system is that you have plenty of time to get quotes. Get some quotes now and get some quotes in the fall/winter and see what the difference is. I would guess there would be a discount for getting it on the off-season, which may make it worth it to replace it early instead of having to pay the summer rates.
That’s something I’m hoping for, i.e. if we get them to do the work at a time when they aren’t ridiculously busy (or when the equipment is cheaper), then we’ll get a price break…
