AC Repair or AC Replacement- Which One Do You Need?

You wake up one day in August and something seems different ... and wrong. Then you realize what it is. You turned on the air conditioner before you went to bed and now that you have awakened you feel nothing but hot air! What happened to your cooling unit overnight and why is it not doing what it is designed to do? If there is hot as opposed to cool air coming out of your AC then there is definitely something wrong! If you know nothing about air conditioning systems then your first instinct may be to phone an AC repair specialist to come out to your home and inspect the unit. Repair is generally more cost effective but there comes a point when you can no longer repair the system anymore and it needs to be replaced. Figuring out whether you need AC repair or replacement is not always easy. You need to take a few things into consideration when it comes to deciding which choice is most appropriate for your home. How long have you had your air conditioner? Just as people age with the passage of time so do cooling units. In most cases an AC will last in the range of 12 to 18 years. However some air conditioners are real troopers and work even longer than that. How often you run the unit plays a role in its longevity, as does the amount of maintenance it receives and the location you are in. If you have had a cooling unit for seven or eight years and you have repaired it a number of times and it has broken yet again- on a hot sweaty summer day no less! - then replacing it might be the smarter option and might be cheaper in the long run. On the other side of the coin, if you have had your unit five years or less than repairing it would make more financial sense because the unit has many years of life left in it. Replacing it too early on will be more expensive for you. Your level of satisfaction with the air conditioner you have makes a big difference in whether you call an AC repair service for help or whether you go out and start anew with a brand new cooling system. If your unit works well most of the time and occasionally requires a few minor repairs then you may be getting ahead of yourself by replacing it. You need to give it a chance to show you that it can work well under most circumstances! But if your unit constantly seems to be suffering from a cooling problem and you find yourself on the phone to the AC repair professional more often than you wish to be then perhaps you have a lemon of a unit and it is time to retire it.