With summer just around the corner and some areas of North America already hitting historically record temperatures (my native Toronto came close in late May 2010), it may be time to start thinking about a new central air system.
If your air conditioner is over ten years old, you can almost certainly save on home energy bills by upgrading to the most efficient units the market has to offer today. But there is more to buying an air conditioner than just buying the brand you know best (for instance, the one that advertises the most heavily, or the one you have now). In this article I provide six important tips for buying an air conditioner that will keep you cool, save you money in the long run, and be headache free.
1. Choose the right brand. It is tempting to buy a name brand you recognize. Recognition usually implies trust, which is why companies spend millions of dollars advertising their brand until it becomes a household name.
When it comes to air conditioners, a brand does not necessarily identify who manufactured the product. Some companies are nothing more than brands, who re-label the products of one or more manufacturers with their own name. In some cases the brand strives hard to maintain a good reputation and will stand behind what it sells (and avoid carrying products that are not of outstanding quality). Other companies build their own air conditioner line and sell them exclusively (meaning no one else gets to rebrand them). This makes it quite challenging to tell whether online customer reviews of the brand you are thinking of have anything to do with the manufacturer whose unit you might be considering.
But some manufacturers (and brands) have relied on an established reputation for too long, or have devoted their extra cash to advertising rather than quality improvements (or timely service), with the result that, in my experience, a number of the most recognizable brands actually have among the poorest records in terms of post-purchase reliability, and especially post-warranty reliability.
So do some research. Ask neighbors and friends what brand of air conditioner they own, how long they have owned it, and how often it has needed servicing. Check for reviews online by owners of different brands. You will soon discover that some household names leave much to be desired in the way of quality and dependability, while some brands you may never have heard of offer some of the most reliable and efficient systems on the market.
2. Choose the right contractor. The HVAC contractor or dealer you choose to install your air conditioner matters at least as much as the brand of air conditioner you settle on. That is because the majority of problems with poorly functioning or broken down air conditioners are the result not of poor manufacturing quality but of faulty installation by a rushed or inexperienced contractor. Your dealer needs to provide properly trained tradespeople to do the installation; the technicians need to have enough time to do the job properly the first time; and they need to be familiar with the equipment they are installing. Ask your dealer how many units they have installed of the particular model you are planning to buy. Ask what problems they tend to encounter. Ask for names of customers who have bought that specific unit or brand from them. And of course ask for general references as well. Make sure you follow up on the references and ask very pointed questions such as "Have you ever had a breakdown on your air conditioning system?" or "Has your air conditioner ever not worked as well as you would like?" and dig deeper if you get a positive answer: "How quickly did you get service from the dealer?" Do not be satisfied by a couple of photocopies of glowing letters a salesperson hands you. Your dealer could be getting ten complaint letters for every letter of glowing praise they get. Consult with your local Better Business Bureau for any complaints about the dealer. Remember, one or two complaints does not mean your dealer is not competent; after all, some customers are impossible to please. You are just looking for patterns where poor attention to important details at install time can lead to an endless stream of headaches.
3. Choose the right capacity. The capacity of central air conditioners is usually described in tons, as in a 1-ton, 1.5 ton, or 2-ton air conditioner. One ton, in air conditioner parlance, is equivalent to 12,000 British Thermal Units, or BTU. It refers to the amount of heat the air conditioner is able to extract from your home in a one hour period. So a 2 ton air conditioner has a 24,000 BTU capacity. To put this in perspective, a typical small window air conditioner has a 5,000 BTU capacity, so a 2-ton air conditioner is like having window air conditioners in five rooms.
Your HVAC contractor should be able to do a heat load calculation for your home to determine how many BTUs of cooling capacity you need. The calculation should take into account your local climate, your own cooling needs, and building size and envelope. On your cooling needs, do you always have to be absolutely comfortable, or can you tolerate slightly above comfort level on the warmest days?
On your building envelope, the contractor should factor in things such as size and quality of windows, surface area of walls and type of insulation in them, size of roof and insulation and venting within it. Ask your contractor for any feedback on the quality of your building envelope. They may determine that you have an attic that is poorly insulated and poorly ventilated (meaning it gets very hot on sunny summer days) and may wind up sizing your unit to deal with those inefficiencies. But you may be able to get a smaller, less expensive unit if you start by addressing simple problems like having a roofing company install roofing vents to vent that hot air out of the attic, and having a building contractor install R-49 to R-60 insulation in your attic. These small things can go a long way to reducing your cooling needs to the point where the cooling capacity you need is drastically reduced.
4. Choose the highest efficiency unit you can get. I have seen some manufacturers market their entry-level model as 'economical and energy efficient'. Beware of that combination, as the usual way in which manufacturers achieve economy is by skimping on energy efficiency. In one case, the manufacturer claimed efficiency when in fact the product line in question was at the absolute minimum efficiency requirement set by the US government.
You have probably heard of ENERGY STAR ratings, and these apply to air conditioners as to many other appliances. But the ENERGY STAR standards are just a notch above the legal minimum; you can actually buy air conditioning systems that are up to 50% more efficient than the minimally ENERGY STAR qualified units.
The point on efficiency and economy is that, for typical use (that is, in a climate where you will be running the air conditioner for at least 100 days a year), it is likely you will wind up spending more money on the energy to run your air conditioner, than on the initial purchase. So the more efficient the unit, the lower the overall cost is likely to be. You should also check for rebates or tax credits that may be available for the more efficient units. Rebates may be provided by your local utility or municipality, while tax credits are often provided by your state or provincial government or federal government. Some manufacturers also offer rebates - although manufacturer rebates may or may not be tied to energy efficiency.
An example of the importance of energy efficiency: on a two ton unit, at today's electricity prices, you could wind up saving up to $2,000 by choosing the most efficient air conditioner commercially available, over the least equivalent currently allowed to be sold in the US. And there is a good chance that today's electricity prices are lower than what we will be seeing in 5-10 years, especially if some form of carbon pricing takes effect and raises the cost of coal- and natural gas-fired electricity.
5. Choose the right service contract As I said earlier, some manufacturers have quality problems, and you could find that a brand name that is well recognized and heavily advertised may translate into leaking coolant, a burnt out motherboard, a faulty thermostat, or lackluster cooling performance even in the first year of operation. The best way to deal with this is to pay for a service contract that covers all parts and labor beyond the initial warranty period, and keep renewing it year after year. You might pay $70-150 for such a contract, but if you shop around you will find an outfit that includes an annual service call to tune your unit, and this is something you should do every year anyhow to keep it operating efficiently. I have heard of many people having to spend hundreds of dollars on replacement parts, and even just getting a technician in to look at the unit and figure out what is wrong can cost you $75 or more. Remember, if you have a service contract with the company that is installing the unit, they are likely to be very careful installing it, and they will be careful with the annual tune-up each year. After all, any mistakes they make are on their nickel.
6. Stay away from gimmicks. Finally, watch out for gimmicks designed to make you think you are buying a 'green' air conditioner. The only true green air conditioner is a tree. These things, even the most efficient, are huge users of energy, and any extra costs you pay to 'green' your air conditioner are better spent reducing your cooling needs by improving insulation, buying better window coverings, putting window fans in your bedrooms, or ventilating your attic.
The gimmicks I have seen include solar-power ready air conditioners, "free" carbon credits, or Freon-free, ozone-friendly refrigerants. With "solar -power ready" air conditioners, the manufacturer provides, at (significant) additional cost, solar panels that can generate a portion of the electricity used by the unit. But you will have to spend far more than the cost of the air conditioner itself to come close to meeting the huge energy needs of your air conditioner, and that money would be far better spent reducing your cooling needs. (There are true solar powered cooling systems but they are nothing like the typical condenser-cycle cooling systems used in most residential units.)
Free carbon credits are a commitment by the manufacturer to buy so many tons of carbon credits for your purchase. The idea is that your unit might consume 2,000 kwh a year, and produce the equivalent of 3 tons of CO2 emissions per year, so the manufacturer will pay for 3 tons worth of carbon credits, for example to plant trees, or build solar or wind powered generation. There is considerable debate over whether voluntary purchase of carbon credits has much impact on reducing CO2 emissions; in any case if you really are concerned about CO2 emissions you can buy your own credits quite cheaply from a number of independently audited non-profit groups, without falling for this manufacturer gimmick.
Finally, if a manufacturer is selling you ozone-friendly refrigerant, remember that Freon and other of the most harmful CFCs have already been fully phased out, so any air conditioner you buy today should have more ozone friendly refrigerant. There are varying degrees of ozone-friendly, but nothing you can buy today will cause nearly the harm, in terms of ozone-damaging chemicals, as the refrigerant that is in the 10- or 20-year old air conditioner you might have now. Which brings us to an important point on removal: make sure you hire a qualified refrigeration specialist to remove the old unit, who promises to drain the existing refrigerant into a sealed container and dispose of it according to Federal environmental guidelines.
There you have it - six tips to worry-free air conditioner shopping. Of course, it may sound like I have given you a lot to worry about. But the fact is that if you put the effort in up front and cover all six of these points in your research and initial purchase decision, you will likely be in for many years of inexpensive, relatively 'green', and problem-free cooling comfort. If you skip one or more of these steps, you will likely wind up with an air conditioner you are unhappy with - or worse yet, one that stops working on that record-breaking scorcher of a day when you need it most!
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