Ten Things You Must Know Before Buying a New Air Conditioner

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Linette Morgan
6 years ago
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Ten Things You Must Know Before Buying a New Air Conditioner All Systems Mechanical HVAC, inc. Many of you are familiar with ASM-air.

However, what you may not know is that we have a whole world of exclusive content that is only available to ASM-air subscribers. This will be your introduction.

So, without further adieu, let s dig-in and see what you should know before buying a new air conditioner. 1.

1 Ten Things You Must Know Before Buying a New Air Conditioner All Systems Mechanical HVAC, inc. Many of you are familiar with ASM-air.com from reading our online articles, addressing issues related to the installation and repair of your heating and air conditioning system. However, what you may not know is that we have a whole world of exclusive content that is only available to ASM-air subscribers. This will be your introduction. In this article, we will address ten things you should know before buying a new air conditioner, as well as some tips to get you the best unit, for the best price. So, without further adieu, let s dig-in and see what you should know before buying a new air conditioner. 1. The Upsize Game - Only Buy What You Need HVAC (Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning) contractors can make a decent living in the industry, but the name of the game is upsizing. What I am referring to when I say upsizing is a contractor s ability to sell you add-ons that will increase their profit margin. Is this dishonest? No (hopefully) it s just business. Do you need these add-ons? Probably not. Let s take a look at a few of the more common add-ons that contractors use in the Upsize Game. A. Up-Sell Your New Air Conditioner or Furnace One thing that some contractors will do is try to sell you something that you don t need (I know shocker). Most often, this comes in the form of highefficiency air conditioners. However, what you might not realize is that the old air conditioner that you are likely replacing is probably somewhere between 7 SEER and 10 SEER. Current minimum SEER requirements in the U.S. are 13 SEER, and 14 SEER in environmentally friendly states like California.

2 But if you do the math, you have already increased your SEER rating by 30-50% just by purchasing a new air conditioner, potentially saving you money on your electric bill. So, do you really have to pay a couple thousand dollars extra for an 18 SEER, highefficiency unit? Probably not. Look, it s up to you, but I just don t want you to fall for this. We recommend no more than a 14 SEER unit for 75% of the United States, and no more than 16 SEER in hot or arid climates. In fact, there are only a few occasions in which we feel it s necessary to purchase a high-seer unit, and this, in most cases, is due to a home being off-thegrid; running solely on the power they are able to generate from wind or solar panels. The reason we steer clear of recommending these high-seer units is simple: high- SEER units are also significantly more expensive to maintain, and their replacement parts can be upwards of three times as expensive. So, once you factor in the life-time cost of repairs for your new high-efficiency unit, you ll find that the savings presented in reduced energy costs are not as readily offset by the increased cost of installing the high-seer unit as they may like you to believe. If you want to go green, then by all means, be my guest. But your new unit will be significantly more efficient than your old one anyway. Just keep that in mind. B. Zoning Systems I love zoning systems. They allow a 5-ton air conditioner to act like a 7-ton air conditioner, and give you the opportunity to keep certain parts of your house at a different temperature than the others. But to be clear, unless your house is over 2,200 square feet, it isn t even worth considering unless you truly need to have one room a different temperature than the others. Examples of this would be if you had an elderly family member living with you permanently, and wanted to keep their room 8-degrees warmer. Or, if you work from home and like to keep your computer room chilled. Don t get me wrong - I love zoning systems - but if the name of your game is economics, then this is not the choice for you. A properly installed zoning system can run anywhere from around $2,000 to over $3,500 to do properly, and may take upwards of 2-3 days to complete. Don t let me talk you out of it, but unless you are trying to run a 5-ton air conditioner on a 2,500 square foot house in the desert, or you have the money and just want your bedrooms at a different temperature than your living room, a zoning system is not for you. In the end, don t let me talk you out of anything you truly want to do, but most of the things presented outside of an air conditioner, furnace, and a thermostat, are not required. They are options, and should be treated as such.

2. Don t Sign Anything Without First Shopping Around Those of you who have read our articles regularly, will not be at all surprised to hear this: always get bids from multiple contractors.

3 2. Don t Sign Anything Without First Shopping Around Those of you who have read our articles regularly, will not be at all surprised to hear this: always get bids from multiple contractors. We recommend getting bids from no less than three different contractors. This will give you the aspect you need to see who, if any, the outlier is. For instance, if you get a bid for $7,300, a bid for $6,900, and a bid for $8,700, then you can take a pretty good guess at who the outlier is. However, take this with a grain of salt, as there are other factors at stake, including the quality of the work, and the equipment used. In the end, getting no less than three different bids will give you a viewpoint that you didn t have before. 3. Price Isn t Everything I know that you just read our section on getting three bids, but keep in mind that a cheap price is no substitution for quality workmanship. Unfortunately, 40% of our residential business comes from being called out to re-install recently purchased HVAC systems. You may have guessed it, but in case you haven t connected the dots yet, these people went with the cheapest possible bidder. But why were they cheaper? Do they pay for Workman s Compensation Insurance and General Liability Insurance, or are they fly-by-night? Do they have skilled HVAC technicians installing your new air conditioner, or unskilled laborers working under direction? These are all questions you need to ask yourself before going with the lowest possible bidder. In general, the licensed contractors with the best employees will always run a few hundred dollars more, but you will know where that money went. You don t want your new air conditioner breaking down every few years, and if the refrigerant lines aren t kept sanitary, properly dehumidified under a vacuum pump, and charged with the proper amount of refrigerant, that is exactly what might happen. Instead, verify the following information: A. Are they licensed? B. Do they carry Workman s Compensation Insurance? C. Do they have a State Contractors Bond? D. Do they carry General Liability Insurance?

4 These are all question that should not only be asked, but can be easily verifiable online through your State Contractor s Licensing Board website. It will look something like this: 4. Size Matters Size Your Air Conditioner Properly Some of you may have read our articles on properly sizing your air conditioner, but to be clear, there is a proper size, and then there is everything else: An under-sized air conditioner won t be able to keep up, will run all of the time, and increase your energy costs in the process. An over-sized air conditioner will cool your home too quickly, turning off prematurely (called short-cycling ), then turn on again quickly as the exterior walls of your house heat the air back up again. This will also result in increased energy costs. A properly sized air conditioner will be able to maintain your home at 72 degrees fahrenheit, while maintaining efficiency (meaning they aren t running all day non-stop), on the hottest days of the year.

5 5. Beware of Installing an Air Conditioner That is the Same Size as the One it is Replacing This goes along with our fourth point. There are some contractors who will just replace your air conditioner with a more modern version of what you already have, opting to install the same exact size as the unit which is being replaced. This, however, is incorrect for a couple of reasons: A. This is based on the assumption that the contractor who installed your previous unit performed the proper load calculations to arrive at the proper size. B. If you haven t noticed, temperatures have increased a bit over the last few decades. Whether or not you believe this global warming is man-made, or not, is outside the scope of this article. The fact remains: average temperatures have increased globally. So, even though your old air conditioner might have been properly sized for 25 years ago, it may also be undersized by today s standards. C. Increasing the size of your air conditioner may mean altering your ductwork; something that some contractors might not want to deal with. As such, they may recommend sticking with the same sized air conditioner to save themselves the hassle. The moral of this story is an important one: if a contractor doesn t visit every room of your house, crawl through your attic and crawl-spaces, or ask you questions about which rooms are hotter or colder than others, then they may not be doing a proper load calculation on your house. Always utilize a contractor that does a proper load calculation. If the bidding contractor just looks at your air conditioner and skips the rest of your house, then use caution. 6. Skip the Maintenance Plans Contractors love to sell you service or maintenance plans after your new installation. You need to keep your air conditioner in tip-top shape, right? After all, the average lifespan of a modern air conditioner is around 15-years. So, imagine that you turn your car on and off 75 times per day for 15-years. Do you think it will need some servicing? Probably. But here s the thing whereas you may not be eager to hop in your garage and change your spark plugs, oil, transmission fluid, and brake pads, maintaining your air conditioner is a lot simpler, and 90% of it you can do yourself. In fact, that s how they make money off of the maintenance plans they hook up the gauges to check your refrigerant levels, spray your condensing unit with a hose, and change your air filter. First, it is unlikely that you will need more refrigerant because if you did need it, your air conditioner would do one of two things: it would be freezing up and no longer cooling the air in your home, or it would be blowing hot air. Second, you can wash your own condensing unit once a year with a garden hose, spraying from the inside out. And third, you can change your own air filter, and should be doing so every three months anyway. The exception to this rule is if you are elderly or disabled, and cannot do these things yourself. So don t pay for a maintenance plan unless you absolutely have to. Instead, have an HVAC technician out every five years to top-off your refrigerant levels, and do the rest yourself. For

6 more on this, check-out our do-it-yourself maintenance plan for a guide on how to do all of these things: ASM's Do-It-Yourself Maintenance Plan 7. Take Efficiency With a Grain of Salt We briefly touched on this in our first point, so there is no sense in belaboring it. Nevertheless, the savings you ll experience from your new air conditioner will depend on a multitude of variables, not just SEER, including: A. What temperature you set your thermostat at. B. Your climate zone. C. Maintenance expenses. D. If the unit is sized properly. What is meant by these points is this: if you pay $2,000 more for a high-efficiency air conditioner, then the only thing that is guaranteed is that it will use less electricity than a lower- SEER unit of comparable size. That s all. It does not mean that it will pay for itself as some salesmen like to say, or that it will even save you money in the long-run. Might it? Sure. But just realize that a lot of this depends on your life-style and whether or not the unit is sized properly. For instance, if you have a low-ambient kit installed on your new unit (allowing it to chill your house into the 60 s), and you keep it set to 66 degrees, you still may be paying a considerable amount for your electricity bill, even with a high-efficiency unit. However, if your new high-seer unit is undersized and running all the time, it may use more electricity than a standard, 14 SEER unit that is sized properly. Additionally, if it breaks down, then it may be significantly more expensive to fix, so just keep that in mind when making your purchase. These variables are not usually discussed by salesmen, but any experienced HVAC contractor will tell you the same exact thing. Enough said. 8. Always Sleep on It No matter what your contractor tells you, never sign on the dotted line the same day that they offer you their bid. Always tell them that you d like to sleep on it. If they tell you that the offer is only good for today, then use a different contractor. Any time that you feel pressured by your contractor, or are in a highpressure sales environment (think

7 of buying a new car), then you should seriously reconsider using that contractor. You will notice that most of the best contractors out there will be low-pressure. The reason for this is simple: they have a long list of clients willing to pay for their services; they don t need to be highpressure. Additionally, the fact that the person submitting the bid is high-pressure likely means that they are a salesman, not an HVAC technician, so how do you know that what they are telling you about your system is even true? Maybe it is, maybe it isn t. Look, I m not trying to make you into a paranoid mess, all I m saying is that you should never sign a contract on the same day in which you receive it. Always sleep on it, and you ll be surprised how often this changes your thoughts on the matter. 9. If Possible, Make Your Appointments for Mid-Morning This point is straying away from HVAC advice just a bit, and instead delving into the realm of psychology, but I nevertheless want you to hear it. I was taught in business school that you should always hold meetings and make big decisions mid-morning. The reason for this is because your brain is at its peak in the mid-morning, between 9am and 12pm. Jumping into a psychology rant wouldn t be beneficial for this article, but the gist of it is that your brain takes a while to wake up in the morning, peaks mid-morning, and will generally decline throughout the day. As such, use this to your advantage, hold your appointments with contractors mid-morning, and make your decision on which contractor to hire mid-morning as well. 10. Everything is Negotiable I don t care what you heard. Everything is negotiable. If you don t like the price, tell them that you are receiving bids from other contractors and you d like a better price. The worst thing that can happen is that they say, no thanks. Contrary to what you might think, negotiation is not confrontation. The best negotiators in the world are respectful, humorous, and even enjoyable to do business with, so forget what you see on television, and try to negotiate a better price. Beware though, as contractors negotiate for a living! As such, you should have a clear understanding of what a fair price is, what size air conditioner you ll need, and so on. If you don t know these things, then save yourself hours of research, because some of it is not available to the general public, especially air conditioner prices. As such, you may want to consider getting an HVAC-Facts Report for your project, which will include this information, and everything else you ll need to know in order to start accepting or rejecting bids from contractors with confidence. It gives you all of the exact information discussed in this article (sizing, prices,

8 etc.), customized for your project, in one, easy-to-use report. You can access this report by clicking on the link to our HVAC Design & Consultation Program below: Get My HVAC-Facts Report Excerpt Page 3 of an HVAC-Facts Report Final Thoughts In the end, we wish you the very best of luck on your upcoming air conditioning installation. Hopefully, you ve found this introduction to our exclusive content useful in your endeavor. Before making your decision on a contractor, you may want to consider getting an HVAC-Facts Report from our online utility, the HVAC Design & Consultation Program. Thanks for reading, good luck, and below is a complimentary 20% discount code, should you decide to use it!

9 Save 20% on Your Customized Report for Becoming a Subscriber Thank You! Use this discount code at checkout: 20off-asm

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