Having your air conditioner or air handler replaced can be an expensive part of home ownership. If one component of your home’s heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system, or HVAC system, fails you might be tempted to just replace the one defective component to save money. But in reality, it is much more beneficial to replace the entire unit at the same time for many reasons.
Maintaining Energy Efficiency
When a company designs a product, they design the air conditioner and the air handler to work seamlessly together in a HVAC system. This means that both parts of the system are meant to work together so that they provide the optimum efficiency and performance in your home. If you just replace one part of the HVAC system, then you are most likely not getting the target efficiency and performance out of the product. Additionally, this could be jeopardizing the dependability of the product over time.
If you did decide to buy a single component of the system with a high efficiency rating, such as an air conditioning unit with a rating of 18 SEER, without a matched system you actually are not achieving that energy rating. When the company develops the product and determines the energy efficiency, they do so using the matched component. So spending extra money on a high efficiency component is going to be ill-advised because your system on a whole will be much less efficient. This improvement in energy efficient HVAC units has been driven by advances in heating and cooling technology. New units are better able to filter the air in your home, reduce unit noise levels, and improve air handling.
Replacing Your Air Handler With Your Outdoor Unit
In addition to the cost of purchasing the system, you also will need to hire a trained HVAC technician to install your new unit. If you replace just one part of your HVAC system, the technician will still have to perform some disassembly and reassembly on the other part of the system. If the other part of your system you did not replace is also old, then it is much more cost effective to go ahead and replace both units, instead of potentially paying for labor costs twice! Additionally, some manufacturers may not completely extend the warranty to your new unit if it is not installed with a matched system because they were designed to work together. If both units are replaced at the same time, then you can have peace of mind knowing that your new HVAC unit is under warranty and covered for any required service.
Replacing Only One Part of Your HVAC System
On rare occasions, it can be more beneficial to just replace the defective component rather than the entire unit. One of those times would be if the part fails within three to five years of purchase and a duplicate of your product can be purchased. In this situation, the duplicate product can most likely work with your existing unit without detracting from the design and operation of the HVAC system.
If your air conditioner or HVAC system needs repair or replacement, contact ADA Heating and Air for your home or business. We provide our services to Danville, Harrodsburg, Lancaster, Lexington, Nicholasville, Stanford, Versailles, Winchester, and the surrounding areas.
