Repair Or Replace: Air Conditioners
Choose Between Repairing Or Replacing Your Air Conditioners
It’s like your car – personal and dependent upon your budget. Air conditioners don’t go on forever, and so you’ll need to think about this at some stage. Here are some tips for when you do.
Old enough
The average air conditioner, if there is such a thing, will last for about a decade. Soon after that milestone, it should be time to think about getting your AC professionally repaired, thus potentially extending its lifespan for up to another decade. It’s worth making an appointment with a technician who has the expertise to know how viable a full repair job is going to be. It’s not that dissimilar to your vehicle. If brought brand-new, top-quality machines can last well over a decade.
Costly enough
It’s not rocket science; your monthly energy bills will be directly linked to how high your Air Conditioner’s SEER rating is. The cost of energy, over an extended period of time, will make the initial investment worthwhile. As your machine gets less efficient over time, you might notice a jump in your energy bills as the amount of energy to produce the same effect goes exponentially up. A proper tune-up and replacement of various parts will immediately redress this.
Inconvenient enough
If you’re having to get minor repairs done with duct tape on your AC unit every summer, then it may be worth simply replacing it altogether. Mini-split air conditioners might allow you to gain some of the benefits that window air conditioners have, but without the hassle of taking up a relatively large portion of window space. Maybe now is the time to make the switch. Or you may decide that you’d like the convenience smart air conditioners offer, ie. to be able to monitor and activate your air conditioner through your phone or tablet. A slight change of air conditioner might be your best policy if your aging machine just isn’t up to the job.
Muggy enough
Air conditioners act as dehumidifiers as well as air coolers, due to their expulsion of warm air and re-introduction of treated outside air. If your air conditioner is fading in power and strength, you will definitely feel it. More importantly, your home will become a welcoming fool for mold and bacteria; bad for the wooden infrastructure of your home, terrible for your lungs, awful for any allergies from which you might already be suffering.
Maybe you want to concentrate your energy in just one or two rooms. If so, one or two portable air conditioners might be the answer. They mean you won’t have to bother with the messiness and loss of window space that window ACs entail. You can also move them from one location to another, thus offering you a targeted area of cooling rather than waiting for a much larger unit to crank into action. We also provide you these great tips on how to maintain your portable air conditioner in order to prolong their life span.
Noisy enough
Brand new, state-of-the-art air conditioners can be remarkably quiet. Like electric cars compared with ‘old school’ gas guzzlers, the newer models can be almost non-existent in terms of the sound they emit. If sacrificing window light is no longer appealing, consider the benefits of through wall air conditioners. Wall air conditioners allow you to re-claim that window light and offer more BTUs, not to mention better fans. They can cool a room more rapidly and have their own internal thermostats. They have a ‘shut off’ function which will save you money in the long run.
Uncomfortable enough
Maybe you already have the exact kind of air conditioner that you want for your particular home, but it just isn’t working efficiently. It could be that your AC isn’t properly sized. An undersized air conditioner won’t have the cooling impact you were hoping for; an oversized air conditioner will stop and start too often, in order to meet the thermostat setpoint. It’s best practice to get a local technician involved. He or she can advise accordingly, and can perhaps re-fit it in a way which will make it more powerful and efficient.
Sources:
- 4 Steps to Troubleshoot Your Air Conditioner – Charter College
- How To Diagnose Common Air Conditioning Problems – Florida Academy