chisue

what area of country do you live?

first off, twice a yr checkups are overkill.

ask servicing dealer to provide a comprehensive list of the scope of services. I assume filters are changed out according to recommended schedule.

I even question whether once/yr is necessary. keep in mind you have some redundancy with two systems and it is highly improbable that you would lose both at the same time. I would ask myself what would happen if you lost one system to a failure. what do you believe are the consequences to your home and your comfort? could you manage until it was repaired? I would want to see some independent industry study as to regular PMs and system reliabilty. I doubt that you could find a solid correlation.

you know when system is not working correctly.

if this was my home, I would do one PM every other year and call as necessary if there was a system breakdown or problem. Of course if you heat by fossil fuel, you need a carbon monoxide detector(s) strategically located in your home with batteries changed out every year.

I will share an anecdotal story. I purchased a new system in 1999 and it has a PM once/yr. I purchased the 10 yr parts/labor ext warranty at time of purchase. On this yr's PM, tech found a problem and the repair was covered by the ext warranty. I think this was just a coincidence and tech was looking to find something wrong. rather cynical isn't it?

IMO

A service contract might make sense depending on the terms, the age of your system, and what you are trying to get from it. In my previous home, I bought a service contract on my York systems after about 7 years when they started to act up. I got the service contract because it allowed me to get priority service with a reduced rate on labor and parts. The fact that it also came wih the 2 annual checkups was a nice to have. The first 7 years the system ran great - no service needed other than cleaning and filter changes which I did. But after that, I started averaging about 2 service calls per year to fix things (both heat and A/C - mostly parts wearing out) - so the service contract was worth it to me. I limped along for another 3 years until I finally replaced the A/C units (but the gas heat units were still going strong when I sold the house at age 13 years).

In my new house the company that installed the HVAC system offered to sell me a service contract. It did not make financial sense to get one at this time. I might consider it when the units get older. I can tell when the system is not working correctly.

tigerdunes -- Thanks for the encouragement to do PM alternate years. I'm guessing the time for it would be spring because the A/C has frequently needed 'topping up' on the refrigerant.

We are 30 miles north of Chicago. We had a thermocouple fail on one furnace in mid-winter three years ago -- woke to a very cold BR. We were OK until the tech could come because the second Carrier system and the boiler system were still good.

Do you agree that we should do the spring PM? Annually? Alternate years?

$800 seems like a lot. A couple of other thoughts:

1) You can (and should) change your filters yourself more frequently than once/twice per year.

2) Sometimes having a checkup also gets you priority service on the units, so you get a better response. It acts as a bit of "insurance". That may or may not be worth it to you.

chisue

the AC refrigerant system is a closed system. It should never need "topping off" unless there is a leak. there are good HVAC operating procedures and tools used to locate a leak. the good techs do this;the bad and lazy techs do not.

I would try alternate years and prefer fall unless there is a problem with AC at seasonal start-up. whatever is your preference is OK.

IMO

sniffdog -- Thanks for the info on service contracts. Our present HVAC Co. offers them but the price is not attractive. (Sorry I didn't see your post earlier; we must have been writing at the same moment.) I sure expected our systems to last longer than 13 years. They did in our former home. Things made that poorly now? Is there a 'life expectancy' on furnaces and air conditioners?

heimert -- These 4" thick pleated filters for the AprilAir Space Guard don't need changing more than once a year. I can hardly detect any dirt on them even then. I think using the central vacuum system regularly helps too. The $800 is PM on two separate Carriers (furnace and A/C) plus the small boiler, done twice a year in the past.

tigerdunes -- Thanks for the info on sealed system refrigerant. This is one of the areas where I've felt I was being fed a line in the past. Or, maybe it takes more labor charged time to fix a leak than to add refrigerant???

Thank you all for taking time to reply. Any thoughts about what happened with the boiler? (See OP.)

You're exactly right it takes more time to find and fix a leak then add a few pounds of refrigerant. If a service tech finds a system a little low on refrigerant it is normal to check a few obvious locations to see if there is any evidence of a leak and then add the refrigerant. If the system has a history of adding refrigerant then additional steps are required to find where the system is leaking. Topping off a system year after year is not correct.

funnycide -- Thanks for clarifying this. It hasn't happened at *every* spring PM, but now I'll know to be aware.

I was told that 10 years on an outside A/C unit was pretty good for an expected operational life. I could have kept it running longer but the few hundred here, few hundred there started adding up and I figured just a matter of time before it crapped out. I was planning to sell the house a few years later and thought an upgrade on the A/C was prudent.

The York gas heater units were in great shape - those ran like the energizer bunny. The only thing that would occasionally go was the ignitor which is normal. I also had a thermocouple switch go once. Other than that - it was rock solid at 13 years old.

I expect my new geothermal heat pumps, which are housed inside, to last a very long time - at least 15 years. Stuff will break but as long as they make replacement parts I will keep these units for as long as I can.

Times are getting tough. It might be best to keep the 800 and deal with repairs as they happen. I always have changed the air filters on the recommended schedule. For the old system it was once every 3 months. The new system is once every 6 months. The first thing I always get asked when I call for service is "are the filters clean?". I am guessing that this is a major cause for equipment issues.

The only time we had coolant issues was when we had some leaky seals in trhe A/C unit which were replaced. Think about the A/C in your car - mine is over 11 years old and has never been recharged. A/C still works great.

sniffdog -- Were you able to 'match' new A/C to your existing furnace? I've been told I'd have to replace the whole shebang if we needed new A/C. Our house gets adequate cooling from the forced air system, just not adequate heat -- hence the boiler addition.

We actually replaced the York A/C units with Trane A/C units and coils. The new coils fit right into the existing supply ducts. We left the York gas heat units alone - and everything worked great. I had two HVAC systems - one in the basement that serviced basement and main level and one in the attic that serviced second floor. On the inside, each system had a gas heater unit and a seperate A/C coil that was mounted just above the blower fan (the blower was integrated into the heater unit) and the output of the coil unit connected to the supply air duct. If you have a system like that - I can't see why you would have to change out the heater unit if only the A/C needed replacement.

The one issue we faced - and another reason I upgraded - was that the original A/C system used a type of refrigerant that was outlawed (maybe it was freon - I cannot remember.) By the time we got to 2003, the replacement refrigerant they were using was also outlawed by a certain date - lets say 2006 (memory going). You could still get the this replacement refrigerant through 2010 BUT the equipment manufacturers were starting to make units that conformed to the new standards. I was told the potential issue was that my copper lines running from the outside units up through walls to the 2 inside coils were not the corrrect diameter for the new mandated refrigerant. So if I waited too much longer the cost to replace the outside units, which would soon conform to the revised environmental standards, would have been much more since the copper lines would have had to be replaced as well (which would have meant tearing out a lot of drywall and repairing the mess that goes with it.). That was the only integration issue we faced - all avoided by using new equipment, but equipment that was not designed to the future standards at the time.

I would get some second opinions on A/C replacement when it comes time to do that.

sniffdog -- Thanks. That makes sense. I'm thinking we have some of the last of the old-refrigerant models, so will probably have to go whole hog when the time comes. (Better start saving!)