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Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Some ways other companies oversell new air conditioning systems.

1. Coil with normal rust


2. Coil with hole that allows air to blow through
The tech./ salesman shows it to you and asks “what do you think of that? “   Many customers respond with “that looks bad” or “is that bad”?
Truth is that it looks worse than it is.  The steel plate on the end of the coil...called a tube sheet is not critical... if it mostly rusted away it is not likely to be a problem because:  behind it is an aluminum fin that would keep air from bypassing the coil.
Their claim:  “The average life of air conditioners is 8 years”.     The truth:  ASHRAE... the engineering association of air conditioning collected info that says that the average life of heat pumps is 12 years and the average live of air conditioners with electric heat is 15 years.  Same for a gas furnace with an air conditioning coil on top... average 15 years.       My statement:  I see a wide range both sides of average.   When a system is near 10 years old or more  I would be reluctant to put much money in repairs.   And systems that have many repairs are not like new,  but rather, had a hard life.
The second photo shows a potentially problematic rust hole.  The rust hole at the bottom left of that coil might allow air to bypass the coil and splash water out of the drain pan causing a water leak.   For that customer the water leak problem went away when we cleared the drain pipe.
Jay Hoover,   Integrity Air

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