In Arizona, air conditioners work hard all summer long. How do you know when it’s time to replace your old unit with an updated version? John Pomeroy of Advanced Air Conditioning in Fountain Hills is an expert in Phoenix AC installation. According to Pomeroy, unless your air conditioner is at least 10 years old, you really shouldn’t need a new unit. However, he says, far too may people simply don’t take care of their HVAC systems the way that they should, and this often leads to replacing their units more frequently than ought to be necessary.
“It doesn’t make sense to me,” Pomeroy says. “After all, your HVAC unit is a $10,000 piece of equipment. But, for most people, keeping their heating and cooling systems in shape is an afterthought.”
Pomeroy says that at Advanced Air Conditioning, his team feels strongly that customers should not spend money needlessly. To that end, he encourages customers to participate in regular preventive maintenance with the goal of extending the life of their air conditioners and avoiding breakdowns. According to Pomeroy, with proper maintenance, your system could serve your family very well for up to 15 years.
Eventually, however, time will take its toll on your HVAC system. Pomeroy says that even if the unit’s effectiveness has not decreased, its energy efficiency almost certainly has. “When your air conditioner gets to be 10 or 15 years old,” he says, “you can assume that the efficiency of that unit is diminished substantially.”
Energy efficiency in heating and cooling systems, says Pomeroy, is quantified using units called SEERs (Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rating). The SEER system was developed by HVAC manufacturers in conjunction with the Environmental Protection Agency in order to help consumers understand the energy consumption associated with various HVAC systems. Essentially, says Pomeroy, the lower an HVAC system’s SEER rating, the more energy that system requires in order to produce the desired heating or cooling effect.
According to Pomeroy, if your air conditioner has a 13 SEER rating, for example, but is over ten years old, you can expect that its actual operating efficiency is only at 9 or 10 SEER. While preventive maintenance and diligent cleaning can prolong the life of the unit and boost efficiency along the way, there’s no way to completely avoid this decline in performance. The reason for this, Pomeroy says, is simply that metals eventually corrode, hindering efficiency.
Even though performance declines are normal as an air conditioner ages, Pomeroy says you shouldn’t be talked into a new air conditioner simply because you suspect your system’s efficiency has been affected by age. “There are certain diagnostic tests we can run,” he says, “that will tell us exactly what your AC unit’s SEER rating is at any given point in time.” Unfortunately, most homeowners don’t know that such tests exist, and are therefore easy targets for unscrupulous contractors looking for a big sale.
“The right time to replace your AC unit,” Pomeroy says, “is when it becomes economically unfeasible to put money into the unit any more, and not before.” Pomeroy recalls an experience with a recent elderly customer who’d been told by another contractor that her AC unit needed to be replaced immediately. When he examined the unit, though, he couldn’t find a problem and told her so. “The previous contractor had obviously assumed she didn’t know whether or not her system was operating properly and took advantage of the situation,” he says. “No one should be treated like that, especially when $10,000 or more is on the line.”
If you suspect that your system may be nearing the end of its life, ask a reputable contractor to test its efficiency. “This will allow to you evaluate, objectively,” Pomeroy says, “whether a new system is the best investment.”
