Thanks for sending your AC problems my way Hey, anything I can do for a brother I will do.
My AC died an honorable death (after 33 years' faithful service).
My furnace might have gone a while longer, but the company gave a very decent discount to get it all done together. And since my AC went out in 95*, it just stands to reason the furnace would go out at 15*. And having construction going on at/in your house is always better one and done.
The guys that did the work were master craftsman, changed out all my old switches, fuse boxes to new, routed all wires, lines and vents/ducts far more tidy and tight than they were before. Top notch brazing work. And instead of having to take my furnace cover off, and remove the old and shove the new filter back inside the unit (with a crappy spring clip that never stayed put), I now have a simple filter slot right off the main cold air return. The AC unit is amazingly quieter than the old one too. And now I should be set (HVAC-wise) for the rest of my time on the planet.
I will be looking closely at my future electric bills to see if there is really any cost savings. But reliability was the issue, not cost.
16 SEER
The last discussion I had with them was what all I needed to do for ongoing maintenance. They said
don't touch nothing, call us. Really, for free? They thought that was funny.
BTW, something I discovered during my week without any AC function at all: At least in my 3-level split, just running my furnace fan continuous (with no heat) served to suck up the coolest basement floor air (though the main return) and spread it around the house. This was far from AC quality cooling, but it stopped my upstairs living areas from gradually becoming 90*+ constant, like it had in the past (during long power outages). And during that week, the high nighttime temps and humidity meant no blowing out the house heat with the upstairs windows open at night either.
