Oh no, Its time to retire old Betsy, She has been with you though thick or thin. Its been in your family forever. You swallow your pride and go looking for a New Car, All the bells a whistles are highlighted by the sales person and, Then you ask, what is the Gas Mileage, Now you trade luxury with Mileage until you find the perfect fit, Now you go home with the car of your dreams.
Most people don’t see their Air conditioner like that, But hay’ It been cooling your family for 10 to 15 years, It ran nonstop during every holidays, Sat up there for years in that hot attic and no one never thought about it, But now its time has come. Suddenly sales people show up at your door by the bushels, You didn’t think that there were so many A/C people out there selling every brand under the sun, And they all say the something, High efficiency or Seer, pitching Seer rating to 23 for a ton of money, So we need to ask, What the heck is seer? Is it a good Idea to go High seer? Will I recover my money? Lets work on this one question at a time.
Seer stands for Seasonal energy efficiency ration, and its one measurement to help determine the amount of energy an Air conditioner will burn in its life time, Now there are many factors that help determine SEER and most is just flat out boring math. “Ill be glad to teach Calculus later” So lets answer the question, is it better to go with high Seer Rating.
Above is a chart of the Life cycle of a 3 ton A/C system running 2100 cooling hours, Now its not a big surprise that the higher SEER the more money it cost to purchase,. The minimum Seer is 14 and As you can tell from the graph a 14 Seer unit will cost a little over $9000 to operate, While a 16 Seer sits around $7000.00 to operate, a saving of $2000. If your contractor is charging an extra $3000 (Your getting ripped off) Your on the loosing end of the deal, If you plan on moving in less than 10 years your really loosing. Now of course It is impossible to predict the cost of energy in 10 years, But the safe bet is if your planning to move stay with a 14. Other wise 16 is a good bet, 18 to 23 Seer seldom is a good fit, but it depends on the cost of what the contractor is charging you.
So can I recover my money, It all depends on if you do your homework. get lots of estimates, Ask for the price of both, us the graph, your the one who has to live the unit so ask a lot of questions..
