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It’s time to think about your air conditioning system, even if you haven’t started to use it regularly. One crucial step to take during spring is to have a professional do a thorough maintenance inspection and tune-up so the AC is prepped to handle the heat. This is the standard annual procedure.
But you may be in a situation where you have an aging air conditioner (10 years or older) and suspect that it’s starting to run down. The big question: should you have the air conditioner replaced before summer, or can you get by for several more years with repairs as needed?
Repairs are the less expensive option—at least they may initially look like it. Replacement, although a more costly choice upfront, may end up more cost-effective and better for your overall indoor comfort. We’ll look closer at the “repair vs. replace” question to help shed some light on it. You will want to work with HVAC professionals like us before you make a choice about repairs or a new AC installation in Perry, GA.
The Age Factor Is Critical
The average service life for central ACs is 10–15 years. Once your air conditioning system is in that range, pay attention to other signs of a system decline that will tell you that the AC is getting close to that last breakdown. The longer you try to push an AC to keep working, the higher chance of rising energy bills, additional repair costs, and an emergency breakdown that will force you to get a replacement.
You can use the age of your AC to help calculate if a repair is worthwhile. Use the “Rule of 5,000”: multiply the estimated cost of the repair by the age of the air conditioner; if the result is greater than 5,000, the repair is probably too expensive; a replacement is better.
Repair Frequency and Cost
Look over the repair history for your air conditioner. Has it needed multiple repairs during the last several years? Once an AC starts requiring repairs every year, it’s draining too much money—money that should instead go to installing a new unit.
We already mentioned the Rule of 5,000 to gauge if a repair cost is worthwhile. Here’s another method: any repair that would cost more than half the price of getting a new air conditioner is too expensive. You’d be throwing away money on a pricy repair that might only get the AC to work for another year or so.
Energy Efficiency
The energy efficiency of your AC is a good yardstick for determining if it’s entering a final decline. If you’ve arranged for annual maintenance for the unit, it should keep most of its original energy efficiency until the last one or two years of its service life. At that point, even with maintenance, the unit will lose efficiency from the effects of aging. You’ll notice this in steeper utility bills in summer. Check over the last few years of summer electricity bills to see if there’s a rise that you can’t account for. This might be the fault of an old AC that won’t recover—best to replace it.