Indianapolis Air Conditioning Replacement

Even an AC unit that has been properly maintained becomes less and less efficient and effective over time. At some point, the cost of repairs, maintenance, and operation at lower efficiency levels outweighs the cost of replacement with a new, more energy-efficient model. If your unit struggles to keep your house cool, or the repairs are piling up, the best financial decision is to replace your unit.

The 5,000 rule can help you determine if the repair costs are too high. If the age of the air conditioning unit, multiplied by the repair cost exceeds $5,000, then replace the unit. If it’s less than $5,000, go ahead and schedule AC repair service – if the number is over $5,000, it’s a better financial decision to invest in new AC installation.

The SEER rating tells you how efficient an air conditioner is. Currently, newly manufactured air conditioners must have a SEER rating of at least 13. If the SEER rating for your air conditioner is below 13, reduce your energy costs by replacing your equipment with a new, more energy-efficient system.

Remember, air conditioners lose efficiency over years of use. For an air conditioner or heat pump more than a few years old, the unit’s actual efficiency is likely lower than the SEER rating of the unit when it was new. 

Your air conditioning system will give out eventually. Some systems run well past their life expectancy with regular maintenance and responsible upkeep. Once a system has exceeded its life expectancy, most repairs are merely band-aids rather than cure. If your system now requires frequent repairs, continued patching up the air conditioner adds to your expenses. It makes more financial sense to replace a needy unit.

Air conditioners are a split cooling system with both indoor and outdoor components. Outside, the condensing unit contains the compressor, condenser coils, and fan. This component releases heat from refrigerant as part of the cooling process. Refrigerant lines link it to the indoor air handler, which contains the evaporator coil for extracting heat, and the blower motor which circulates cool air back to the living spaces.

Heat pumps look a lot like an air conditioner in size and appearance. However, unlike an air conditioning system, which only cools the air in a home, a heat pump cools and heats.

Essentially, a heat pump is an air conditioner in the summer and a reverse air conditioner in the winter. During the summer, a heat pump extracts heat from your indoor air, transfers the heat through refrigerant, and releases it to the outside. In the winter, heat is extracted from outdoors and moved into the home. When an air‐source heat pump is heating your home, the cooling cycle is reversed. It should be noted that a heat pump runs year-round, whereas an air conditioner only runs in the summertime, then a heating system takes over in the winter. 

As its name suggests, an air handler “handles” the air inside your home and delivers warm or cool indoor air throughout all conditioned living spaces. An air handler is sometimes called the blower. The air handler contains the components that move the air throughout your home and works with the heating and cooling components of your HVAC system. It is placed inside the home, usually in a dedicated closet, basement area, or attic space. The air handler closely resembles a gas furnace.

Air handlers that are installed with an air conditioner contain the indoor evaporator coil. If you have a heat pump as part of your system, the air handler may also contain heating strips to provide your home with a backup heat source in the wintertime. 

A ductless air conditioner or heat pump typically consists of wall-mounted indoor units combined with an outside compressor, therefore it does not utilize ductwork to move the air throughout a home. Each area of the home has its own dedicated air handler that provides zoned cooling directly to the space.

Ductless systems are extremely energy efficient. In typical systems with ductwork, up to 30% of heating and cooling is lost through duct leaks. Ductless models also have inverter-driven compressors that slow down and speed up based on the needs of the system, which are unlike traditional HVAC compressors that operate at a single speed.

Ductless systems are often selected for installation in homes without ductwork, where ductwork renovations make installing another type of air conditioner or heat pump too costly, or in areas not connected to the current cooling system. They are a great upgrade for homes that use air conditioning in window setups, providing higher energy efficiency and better security over an AC unit in window. New additions, finished basements and attics, garages, and other areas of the home are able to utilize a ductless system while the rest of the home is served by the existing cooling system. Or, the entire home can be retrofit for zoned ductless heating and cooling.

Geothermal energy is up to 500% efficient. Since heating and cooling your home accounts for about 50% of your utility bills and water heating is another 14%, substantial savings is generated. Geothermal systems are so energy efficient that you could get your investment back in the money you save on energy bills in as few as 5-10 years, depending upon the efficiency of the system you are replacing.

This type of cooling system extracts heat from the home and deposits it into the ground instead of releasing it into the air outside the home. Below-ground energy is extracted and used to heat the home over the winter. Some geothermal systems heat water without additional energy usage, too!