Take Stock of Your AC This Fall—Should You Keep It?
You don’t have to worry as much about your heating system as you do about your air conditioning system in our Dallas climate. Even though we recommend you schedule maintenance for your heating system during the fall, the bigger question to deal with as we transition to cooler weather is how your air conditioning system is holding up. You still need it during the upcoming months, and it just passed through an intensely hot summer where it worked lengthy days. Do you think the AC still has more years of efficient and effective service left, or is this the fall when you schedule a new air conditioning installation in North Dallas, TX?
Let’s take a closer look at the situation with your central AC.
System Age
This is the best metric for when an air conditioner is nearing the end of its service life. If you don’t remember when the AC was installed or it was already in the house when you moved in, check on the back of the condenser cabinet. The manufacture date will be located on a metal plate.
The average service life of a central air conditioner ranges between 10 and 15 years. Most ACs will reach 15 years if they have proper regular maintenance and repairs done as soon as they’re needed. Once a system is more than 15 years old, it has a higher chance of losing energy efficiency, losing cooling power, and suffering from a major breakdown. We strongly recommend considering replacing an older AC.
Cost of Operation
Keeping track of your electrical bills each summer helps you to know how well the air conditioner is working. Electrical costs can fluctuate, and you may experience periods of higher AC use during some years. But if you see a rising cost in electrical bills during the summer that you can’t attribute to these causes, it’s possible the air conditioner is suffering from an age-related decline.
Cost and Frequency of Repairs
An air conditioner should only need a few repairs during its service life. Some may even have no repair needs until they’re replaced due to a decline in performance. But at the very least, an AC shouldn’t need repairs more than once a year, nor should the cost to keep the AC running with repairs exceed $500 during a year. This is paying too much when you can start saving and enjoy better cooling with a replacement system.
Hot Spots in the House
One of the major warning signs of an air conditioning system going into an irreversible decline is when it can no longer evenly cool the house. Professional installers size a new AC so it can distribute cooling across all the rooms without struggling or short-cycling. When hot spots start showing up in rooms that normally have no problem remaining cool, call for repair technicians to investigate—and be ready to hear that the system needs to be replaced if it’s old enough.
Speak to one of our professionals at Frymire Home Services when you think it’s time for a new AC. “You Always Win With Us!”
