Right now, we are enjoying the limited season we have in our area when air conditioning isn’t an absolute necessity. That means it’s the perfect time to evaluate your air conditioner. How has it been doing? Do you have some concerns? Is it in need of repair? Let’s make sure you get your AC situation sorted out before it gets hot again. Should your old air conditioner be repaired or replaced? We’ll help you decide.
Factors to Weigh
There isn’t a simple measurement, for example, like an exact number of years you should keep your air conditioner before you replace it. Instead, you’ll have to take a few factors into consideration.
- Time: Most of the time, an air conditioner can work consistently until it is ten years old or so. The closer it gets to that age, the more troubles it will encounter, and the more it will cost to keep it in good repair.
- Maintenance: Every single year, you should have a routine maintenance appointment for your air conditioner. If you’ve made sure to do that, your air conditioner is much more likely to make it to that ten-year point in good working condition. If you’ve never had maintenance done, it might only last half as long.
- Efficiency: That maintenance can keep a system’s efficiency up for many years. At some point, maintenance and repairs can be done diligently, but the efficiency will just keep dropping. Rising electric bills are a sign of AC decline.
- Repair Needs: Is an expensive repair needed right now? Even if your system only needs a minor repair, does it need to be fixed more and more often? Those costs add up! And as the system gets older, the repair needs will only become more frequent.
Balancing the Considerations
How can you tell which factors to weigh more heavily? We’ve got a couple of different methods you can use to simplify these considerations and get a clearer answer about whether to repair or replace your air conditioner before the coming spring. These are the 50% method and the 5000 rule. It’s worth giving both of them a try.
- The 50% Method: Get an estimate of the cost of the repair your air conditioner needs. Then look into the cost of a new air conditioner. If the repair is less than 50% of the cost of a replacement, it’s worth repairing. If it’s more than 50%, replace it instead.
- The 5000 Rule: Take that repair cost estimate and multiply it by the age of the air conditioner in years. If the result is more than 5000, replace the unit. If it’s less, repair the unit. If it’s right about 5000, consider the other factors. For example, if repair needs are rare, this repair might be worthwhile. If you’ve been skipping maintenance, replacement is the better choice.
Whether you need to schedule a repair or a replacement, or you just need AC maintenance in Oviedo, FL, we’re ready to help!
Contact Gary Munson Heating & Air Conditioning for AC maintenance, repair, or replacement in Orlando, FL. You’ll be more comfortable with the best!