The central air in our home is not blowing cool air anymore. The heat works just fine. We are calling tomorrow to schedule a service tech to come out. I know we will ave to pay a fee for the tech to come to the door, and we are curious about cost of repairs. Has anyone had their central air repaired. What was the price that you paid? Our unit is 8 years old.
It really, really varies. If it's low on refrigerant that can be very expensive. My last AC lasted 17 years, but 8 is actually getting older for the newer models. I think they are only supposed to last about 10 years, unfortunately. It's probably about $90 for the service call alone and then extra for whatever parts and labor you need.
It very much depends on what is wrong with it. We just spend about $500 on our 36+ year old A/C. It needed the coils and other innards cleaned, looks like it was never ever done before (OK, we're guilty in not knowing it was something that needed to be done but we only account for 10 years LOL). It also needed about a pound and a half or so of coolant. That was the largest part of the expense honestly.
There isn't a real way to guess how much it'll cost because there is no way for us to know what's wrong with it.
ETA: We found the place we used through Yelp. Our neighbors have the same A/C until and they were getting told it would be $15K to replace the unit because they don't repair old units anymore! You have to find the right guys!
It depends on what, exactly, is broken.
Ours was out a few weeks ago and the reason was a broken capacitor (I think that's what he said). It was $120 for the total repair, parts and labor.
I am pretty sure if I would have called one of the big heating & air companies around here they would have seen a golden opportunity to try to get me to replace the whole darn thing, for about $2000-3000.
Check your local Yelp listings for one with really good reviews. We have better results using small Mom & Pop repair companies than we do with big chains.
Just watch out...there are unscrupulous repair folks out there....
We had a problem with our AC one time, and called who we thought had installed it.... but it turned out that he sold his business to someone else, and moved...
Anyway, as the tech was testing it, he basically said... "Oops..... looks like your compressor is shot... you'll need a new one..... I can put in a new one for XXX amount..." Hubby said... well, since it is shot, I think we'll call around and see who can give us the lowest cost.... so the guy waffled a bit, and "called" his supervisor, who "suggested" changing out the capacitor, I think... that "sometimes" that will fix the problem. Lo and behold, it worked!
Little did the guy know that hubby is an engineer, who also grew up installing and repairing appliances.... he saw immediately that the guy was using the voltmeter incorrectly...... (he apparently put the leads on the wrong place, and then showed us that there was no reading on the meter)...
I think he was trying to scam us.
When our a/c stopped blowing cold air, it was the coil. It cost us almost $900.
It really depends on what the problem is. I fit's a simple problem, the cost will run you less.
Hi K.- there really could be a variety of things causing the problem. We have a 20-year-old unit that stopped blowing cold 2 years ago. The diagnosis was a leak in the Freon. He added more, which fixed the problem. I think it was about $125. Last year he had to come do it again, said that we could just keep adding Freon till the unit quit, it ran just fine otherwise. So if you have a leak, it could be a quick, relatively inexpensive fix, but you'd want to look ahead to replacing the unit or you could be doing it every summer.
It's gonna depend on what it is-- the first thing they will probably check is the freon level or whatever coolant your unit uses. I'd stand by and keep an eye on them. If they try to tell you it's something that is going to be super expensive DEFINITELY get a second bid before having anything done.
Here, where my husband is the maintenance tech, it is usually the freon, or, of your unit has one, a reset button on the outside unit can be pushed. A lot of times the condensor motor goes out and has to be replaced or the starting capacitor... which is a few hundred dollars with labor.
ETA: check on Angieslist.com before you do business with a contractor - you get really good reviews.
K.:
To fix our AC last year was $1K....we're in DC.
You can ASK them what they believe the costs will be. It might just be out of freon - or it could be broken...
Good luck!
