The HVAC is kaputt decisions decisions

Ok House is 1350 sq ft currently has a 11 yr old Goodman heat pump. I'm in the upstate of SC so zone 2 or depending on which chart you look at.

Outside unit is 12 SEER 2 ton, air handler is 2.5 ton, system is R22.

It's come time to put freon in yet again last put in 6 weeks ago so there is a leak. Goodman are known for "A" coil leaks.

I have 7 triple pane low E windows, 3 exit doors. House is 45 long and 30 wide. long sides are East to West so sun is on the front in the morning and on the back in the afternoon.

Temps in summer rarely get over about 97-99 during the day and the coldest I've seen in the winter is 12. Leaning heavily towards biting the bullet and installing a new unit.

Choices are 14 SEER and 16 SEER using 12 SEER now.

Thoughts that are based on facts not he said she said please.

Tonnage and SEER rating for house.

My parents 15 yr old TRANE unit died and they just had a new Unit put in this weekend. Both HVAC contractors that came out recommended the 14 SEER units. They said for the extra money the 16 SEER units did not save enough to be worth it. According to them the energy savings were only about $20 a year. So you take that for what it is worth.

Much depends on where you live. Here the AC dealers are well organized and have a husky price increase for each increased SEER level, so in the end there will be little or no savings in your pocket. If you can buy SEER increases for a reasonable price, then it might be to your advantage to buy up. Do the math very carefully! If I had to replace a unit, I would like a SEER 16, but there would no savings doing that here because the savings would end up in the dealer's pocket with the price I would have to pay.

11 years old, i'd get someone to find the leak,...mine's 21 yrs. old and still going

Yeah, find the leak and fix it or replace the leaky part.

Should consider getting it fixed and keep it going particularly if your indoor unit is still good and serviceable. Maybe looking at $5-6000 for just the new heatpump.

Fix it.
Not old enough to replace.
My last system went 24 yrs. and was still running.
However after a couple of 100 + summers I decided to replace for piece of mine.

My Dad's unit's are over 40 years old and he just changed one out this spring.(house has two units)

Tom

We went through that same problem and decision making process in April. Last fall our repairman told us there was a slow leak in
the "A" coil that was not fixable. In April it would not cool right again due to low freon levels which caused another part to over
heat so we bit the bullet and elected to go with a new unit outside and 'A' coil inside. The old unit was 23 years old and 11 or so
SEER (I cannot remember.) and the new is 14 SEER. That is the lowest they can legally install and the salesman said it was not cost
effective to go with the 16 SEER unit. Our new unit is a 2 1/2 ton outside unit with 3 ton A coil. In this area it is common to up
size the A coil. So far we are real happy as the new unit is certainly quieter than the old one.

I would go for a new A coil "IF" there is proof that is where the leak is.

Many other places it can leak, just don't base the decision on an assumption!

Several have replied " fix it". Doubt that
is possible. It's a Goodman. I live in a
60 unit 55+ mobile home park in Florida.
Many of the local HVAC contractors were
installing Goodmans about 10 years or so
ago. If I recall, approx. 7 or 8 Goodmans
were installed. All but 1 had to be
replaced in less than 10 years. All of the
local contractors will no longer use or
install Goodman. And their warranty is
worthless.

I went through this last summer with 14 year old air to air heat pump. The repairman told me i beat the average life span for of 12 years for such a system. It was likely a leak in the inside coil, but after adding enough freon + nitrogen to pressurize the system and detect the leak, and then flush the system just the cost to diagnose was prohibitive. Then it was unlikely that they could get a coil to fit my air handler so the whole would probably have to be replaced. So close to $4500 for a new coil with 14 year outside unit or $8500 for a new 14 SEER system. Replacement was a no brainer.

I got many quotes form all the different manufacturers and settled on spending the extra money for geothermal. I second the recommendation of crunchy all your numbers as far as electric costs. For NE Kansas, the extra money for the 16 SEER unit never would have paid back. Your home sounds to be more energy efficient than mine, so I doubt it would pay off for you.

Good luck! Replacing an HVAC system is one of the downsides of home ownership, especially in August.

What part of the upstate are you in? 2 winters ago, it got down to 4 and 6 a couple of nights here in Oconee County. Over the years, we have seen quite a few below 0 temps with the coldest being -10.
My next Hvac system will be a water source heat pump. Got plenty of water to work with around the house though.
Richard

Dodgeit,

Here are the facts. I have a 2000+ sq ft home, plus 2 car, plus basement. I have a 16 year old 12 seer Rudd 2.5 ton. It handles my house in Terre Haute just fine. Doesn't run all the time to keep my place at 72. Normally I would set thermostat to 75, but I have to lower temp to lower humidity.

If you have good windows and doors, it's not the size of the AC that matters as much as how well your attic and walls are insulated. If your walls have a way to block radiant heat gain. I think having a brick home is the next thing to having an underground house. It takes a long time for my 25000 brick to heat up and a long time to cool off.

I have a 1560 ft country home too, wood siding. Insulated and vented the same as my 2000+ place. Basement isn't tall enough for central. It's cooled nicely with a 7000 BTU window shaker in master and 10,0000 in Dining. That's about 1.5 ton. 12,000=ton.
All my duct work is metal and in the basement, not in a hot attic. I also pull a lot of 55 degree air off my basement floor. Dehumidifier in basement doesn't run during the AC season too.

I worked my way through college as a commercial HVAC repairman at Bethlehem Steel , N Indiana. I'm not a fan of heat pumps. Won't have one ever!!!

I believe attics can't have too much ventilation. I have eve, roof and power vent in my house to reduce AC load.

My last AC lasted 29 years without any repairs. Only cleaned condenser regularly, change filers and oil fans.
So does size really matter?


Hope I was helpful.
geo

Given that you're using your heat pump to both heat and cool, I'd think you would want to buy the most efficient unit you can get. But it all depends on what you're paying for electricity and how much you use your heat pump.

You probably have a pretty good idea how much it costs to operate your current unit. Since you know the SEER of both your current unit and the replacement options, it's straightforward to figure out what you should save.

Let's assume it cost you $1200/year to operate your current unit. SEER is the ratio of energy out to energy in. But just to make things simple, let's use dollars as our units of measure for energy in, rather than kW-hr.

So for your current unit, SEER = 12 = (E_out / E_in) = (E_out / 1200)

Solving for E_out, E_out = 12 x 1200 = 14,400 bogo-units (I just made up the unit of measure called bogo-unit.)

OK, how much will it cost to get the same amount of heating and cooling out of the new units?

For the SEER 14 unit: E_in = (E_out / SEER) = 14,400 / 14 = 1029

So the new unit will cost about 200 dollars less per year to operate. You probably can't justify replacing your old unit on operating cost alone, but if repairs are going to be expensive you may have no choice.

And for the SEER 16 unit: E_in = (E_out / SEER) = 14,400 / 16 = 1029 = 900

So the SEER 16 unit costs about $100 less per year to operate than the SEER 14. So if it costs an extra 400 dollars to go with the SEER 16 unit versus the 14, it will pay for itself in four years.

You can plug in your actual numbers for energy expense and heat pump prices to figure out for yourself whether it makes sense to go with a higher efficiency unit.

Depending on money and space I would look into
geothermal. I've dug several in but I know nothing
about hvac but everyone I've talked to that has one
loves it. Just something to chew on

I have a Goodman unit in my house, and I have never lost an ounce of refrigerant. It is a 13 or 14 SEER unit using R-22. I have a 3-1/2 ton outside unit with a 4-ton A-coil inside. It has been running flawlessly for about 15 years. Upsizing the A coil does seem to make the unit more efficient.

(quoted from post at 14:57:10 08/01/16) What part of the upstate are you in? 2 winters ago, it got down to 4 and 6 a couple of nights here in Oconee County. Over the years, we have seen quite a few below 0 temps with the coldest being -10.
My next Hvac system will be a water source heat pump. Got plenty of water to work with around the house though.
Richard

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Richard,
I'm in Spartanburg county close to the intersection of 292 and I-26. In the 20 years i've lived here I've only seen the temps your talking about one time.

Your actually not too far from me. I live in upper Laurens County, like 3 miles from Woodruff. I have a couple of cousins in Woodruff who do HVAC. If ya need any help, let me know and Ill pass along their number!

Hey John, thanks for the offer. The guy doing the work is close at hand and reasonable in price, with a good reputation. Does mostly new home installations.

I think $4200 for two new units and flex duct, is more than reasonable. Nice to know I have YTers close.

$4200 for two heat pumps is extremely cheap.

Boy paid $7800 for one Trane HP.

Flex duct?? Are these complete outside units that sit on the ground, like those used on trailers?

(quoted from post at 07:24:01 08/02/16) $4200 for two heat pumps is extremely cheap.

Boy paid $7800 for one Trane HP.

Flex duct?? Are these complete outside units that sit on the ground, like those used on trailers?

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Sorry, I meant the Air handler and outside unit. The flex duct is running from trunk line to vents.

(quoted from post at 00:50:21 08/02/16) Depending on money and space I would look into
geothermal. I've dug several in but I know nothing
about hvac but everyone I've talked to that has one
loves it. Just something to chew on

Click to expand...

We had it at our log house and loved it. Summertime cooling was almost free so we never opened windows. It was about $10,000 in 1992 to install the system, with the loops running in trenches under the pasture. Our excavator was already on site so we saved a little cost there and the HVAC contractor liked the nice wide trenches he dug.

We are facing the same thing. Our heat pump system is not that old but they can't get parts for it anymore since the mfg. had quit making them right after it was installed, and and it's using R-12 coolant (not sure that is a big problem however). Our guys have been patching it together up to now. This system replaced a junk York unit that failed early also. Just had the coil replaced ($1,000) but the rest of the system has now crapped out. They were out each week for the last three weeks working to restore the A/C.

They are suggesting an all new system, outside unit, air handler and piping for a unit using the newer refrigerant and bigger coil (reason for the new air handler, the newer coil won't fit in the current air handler and the filter system is junk). They will give us credit for the old coil, they can use it for another installation so we are facing $4,000 and change for it all. We also have an oil burning hot water heat system with radiators to take some pressure off of running the heating side of the heat pump constantly.

My guys said that most of the service work they do is on heat pump systems rather than straight A/C and tried to talk us into a propane unit with A/C but for quite a bit more cost, or just A/C with the oil burner like we had when we bought the place. Relying on just oil again scares me since at one time we were paying almost $4 a gallon for heating oil, about $1,800 every month and a half or so. With the heat pump for the milder cool season has been less expense overall.

I'm in Louisiana and similar weather here , I have a 1380
ft house built in 2006 and have a Train 3.5 ton unit with
a 16 seer rating . Having done anything but swap from heat
to a/c . Seer is a energy rating and tons is the amount of
heat or cool you get.