My home AC took a dump and I need to discuss.  Basically they changed the evaporator coil for the main unit on Saturday and now the outside coil blew a hole.  I was told that the new evap coil was better and more efficient so we upgraded after finding leaks in my main unit.  Now this shit.  I believe the unit was too high pressure for my 11 year old unit and this caused the problem.  Now they want another $3k for the outside unit.  Call me at four six nine - eight seven nine - five five zero five.
THanks.

If you are present, watch and see the defective parts as
they are discovered.  Don't take thier word sight unseen.
Reputable repairmen should not mind much.
Heck, it's your property and $$$.
Maybe too late now though. 

believe me, I was there in the attic all day Saturday.

Damn.  All I can offer is empathy...  I paid a guy $300 to replace a $20 capacitor on my AC a few weeks back.  Three bolts, a couple of connectors, and that'll be $300, please. 

Our AC went a couple of months ago.  We had Stark Air come out, not knowing anything about AC but knowing ours is old I asked if we should replace the whole thing, he said it was cheaper to just replace the motor in the outside unit.

He replaced that then realised it was the starter/capacitor, so he replaced that too.  As the motor was not faulty he did not charge us for it, which was good.

I was not there whilst he was doing this but checked as soon as I got home, I have to say he had very little pride in his work, there were wires hanging out of the top of the unit.  I called him to complain and he said he always does it that way and no-one else has been unhappy, I still find that hard to believe. Anyway I made him come back and make it nice, which he did.

A year or two ago, we lost a capacitor on our downstairs unit.  As he worked on it, I quizzed him on replacing the outside unit to something more efficient.  He told me at that time I would need to plan on upgrading both the indoor and outdoor units at the same time because the systems & the refrigerant used between the type I had and the upgraded units were incompatible.  At that time the house was only about 5 years old.  (I think we have Carrier units, but I will check tonight when I get home.)
 
I hope that wasn’t the case when they upgraded your indoor unit.

We were told the same as was told to Su by two different techs--yes, I got a second opinion. 

A rule of thumb for 2 stage AC systems is to replace them whenever your refrigerator goes out, or about every 15 years. They use the same technology and materials, have the same design limitations, and receive the same owner neglect.

The build quality of residential HVAC has declined along with the increase of the cost of copper and the shrinking of the American light manufacturing sector over the past 25-30 years. They could build them to last, but nobody would pay what that would cost today. To control cost, there is extensive use of aluminum and plastic where copper and sheet steel were used in older, long lasting units. The good news is, your new plastic evaporator coil drip pan won't rust out, the bad news it will simply disintegrate, probably due to the furnace heat cycles in the winter. The condenser unit will last about 15 years. Refrigerants have gotten more exotic and costly, but not better, thanks to environmental legislation. R-22 is still available, but you can't buy it at Sam's anymore. In fact, you can't legally buy any refrigerant without a TACL. I have a set of gauges from when I was working in building maintenance, but they are just wallhangers now.

Quote from: CajunR on July 20, 2010, 03:40:14 AM
Damn.  All I can offer is empathy...  I paid a guy $300 to replace a $20 capacitor on my AC a few weeks back.  Three bolts, a couple of connectors, and that'll be $300, please. 

i had one go out on mine on sunday...just replaced it yesterday.  i'm still under the crappy warranty plan so i had to pay $120 (it would have been $60 but they said since the unit was on the top of a 3-story building there was the "additional person" fee or "really tall ladder" fee... awesome).  and he told me the upstairs unit looked about 15 years old, and was some off brand i guess; goodwin maybe?  so, i can only imagine i'll be in the same boat shortly having to replace the entire unit and spending multiple $k's.

and you wonder why we don't manufacture shit anymore.  I'm so sick of contractors and their lies.  Quality sucks and responses are vague if ever even remotely true.