Walker, LA is quite warm for most of the year, and our winters are brief in the extreme. January is one of the few months where our air conditioners aren’t called upon to work on a regular basis. If yours is getting older, you might be concerned about its ability to get you through another long Louisiana summer. Now is the perfect time to consider your options and plan for a replacement if your system is ready to be put out to pasture. But how can you determine that? We have a few suggestions for you.
3 Signs
Basic indicators start with three specific signs of trouble with your air conditioner. If two or more of them are met, it’s a good sign that your air conditioner needs replacing.
- Age. The warranty is a solid indicator of how long your air conditioner can reasonably last, and with regular maintenance and careful service, it can likely last quite a long time beyond that. If your warranty has expired, and your air conditioner exhibits either or both of the other two signs, that’s usually an indication that its race is run.
- Frequent repairs. Every air conditioner experiences breakdowns from time to time, but those breakdowns are apt to increase. If you experience more than two breakdowns in a single twelve-month period, that’s a sign that your A/C is reaching the end of its life. Alternately, it might only be one repair call, but the expense is such that investing in a new system makes more sense than keeping the old one limping along.
- High monthly costs. Air conditioners lose efficiency as they get older, which means they cost more to run from month to month. Over time, those costs can rise considerably, stretching your budget to the breaking point. A newer, more efficient air conditioner can help recoup some of the cost of installation simply by costing you less to operate.
Get an Expert Opinion
If you spot these signs, but you’re still not sure what the status of your system is, then you can always call in an expert. We all want to get the most we can out of our air conditioners, and even if yours is looking a little shaky, it might still have the strength to get through another season or two. A technician can give you a definitive answer with a maintenance session designed to look the system over and assess its overall fitness. If further repairs are needed, you have time to schedule them before spring, as well as discussing costs with the technician and determining if replacement is in order. Even if the air conditioner is fit for duty, a maintenance session will tighten loose bolts, clean dirty components and otherwise help it run at its best for the long summer to come. Even if the air conditioner is fit for duty, a maintenance session will tighten loose bolts, clean dirty components and otherwise help it run at its best for the long summer to come.
For air conditioning maintenance and replacement, call on the pros at A Professional Heating and Air!