Things just cost sooo much more lately.

One central AC repair quote is $2450 to replace the compressor and capacitor, fully charged (old style freon) "to the best of it's capabilities" (what does THAT mean!?). One year warranty.

The other quote is Tempstar 13 seer 24,000BTU K410Aand matching evaporator $4650.

Do I want to bother fixing the old?

BRAD

You should buy new equipment, although it will have a shorter expected useful life than ever before. Raise rents or perish.

Also, you should work at getting lower pricing for the change outs. I am looking at an invoice for a 3ton 13seer condenser $1195. A coil $579. I buy a supply equipment. Installation $200.

Is this a house that requires central HVAC? Back when I began, I assumed all my houses NEEDED Central HVAC, but then I quickly learned tenant often don't care. Especially in Class C. Unless you're renting Class B or better, stick with window shakers. Cheaper, faster to swap out, and most last 50% of the life of a new central system.

I have yet to $1 extra of rent out of tenants for central HVAC, but I spend plenty of $1 fixing the dang things!

This home is 4 bed, 2.5 bath, split level, with slider windows that will not accept a standard window shaker.

$1650 rent.

BRAD

Years ago had a rental with no window that worked for an AC, so we cut a hole in the wall, installed an external bracket, and trimmed it back in.

Also installed a new outlet so we could plug it in.

It worked fine.

How old is the unit? Is a a split or package?

Heat exchanger next?

With equipment built today I would consider a change out. Then you would get a 10 year warranty on your compressor.

Brad, I had a reputable AC company, diagnose the compressor as bad and told me they could not find the warranty with Armstrong at the local supply warehouse. The quote was $980 for a new compressor which they installed. I called Armstrong with the model and serial number and Armstrong found where the unit was purchased and had 3 months left of a 10 yr. warranty. So, I called the AC company that installed a compressor and was given a full refund.

The tag on the outside unit is aluminum - corroded and unreadable - no info shows.

It was replaced by the resident years ago so I do not have any paperwork on it.

I have a good ol boy one horse operator coming to work his mojo on it. His rough estimates over the phone were $1000 less than the company we've been using for 20 years.

BRAD

Brad, I have had to go to the compressor data plate to obtain the age of a condensing unit. A damaged equipment nomenclature plate is common.

Slider windows.... ugh, I hate those. But as others have said, a hole is a hole. Frame around it with some plywood and voila: window shaker installed.

If your good ol' boy can work his mojo, that's best, of course. For the future, I only see the cost of installing and maintaining central HVAC systems going up, and labor usually is not included. Even if the compressor is warrantied you pay the huge labor $ to swap it out. Also often the coolant leaks out, so you pay for the recharge too. I've had brand new systems start leaking after 3 years (York... bleh!) and ended up spending over $700 to fix my "new, warrantied" system. This was over 10 years ago.

That's about the time I started buying window shakers. The thing I like about them is let's say you have one big one per story of the house and one small one per bedroom. Even if one unit goes out, there are 2-4 others... plenty to limp the resident along until you can swap out the dead unit. Swapping out a window shaker is a 1-hour handyman project compared to a whole day change out of an entire HVAC system.

Hey Brad, remember how you often say that the kitchen sells the place to the "Momma"? I have found that the comfort of the house sells the place to all prospects.

We don't mess with older units unless it's an emergency like we had in the summer of '21 (as in, 90+ degree high humidity heat wave AND major supply chain issues that year. We had some components replaced and the older heat pump charged with coolant, but only got a year out of it).

We always buy better and more efficient than expected, and it pays off when on a cold winter day or a hot summer day the prospects walk inside the house and say, "Ahhhhhh!"

Yup, the prices jumped in January. But I'd vote for replacement (those newer heat pumps are unbelievable - we were accustomed to feeling ambient air when the system was in "heat" mode; feeling warm air meant that the emergency backup radiant heat was running at great expense. Not anymore! Our tenant in the house with the highly efficient replaced unit was delighted to feel warm air in the bathroom on a cold winter's morning, and knowing that his electric usage would not rise to have that happen made him even happier. We're at 8 years and counting with this guy - 8 years at about $11,000 profit/year means that the new system was paid for by him and we are still about $83,000 ahead.)

And check with your local utility - we got a $250 rebate from the electric provider, which allowed for that as long as we got the tenant to provide their account number and sign off that we were the owners from whom he rented. He was more than happy to do that, as he sat with his laptop under his ceiling vent pumping out warm air on a cold day.