We've been in our house almost a year.
In the last couple weeks, it's seemed like our AC has been working harder than it should be, especially since we're not yet into the real heat of a Houston summer.
Running almost constantly, just to maintain temp, and taking hours to bring the temp down in the evening.

AC guy is at the house now. System too low on refrigerant to test. $1k to recharge & find the leak

That is steep. How old is your unit? Leaks often cannot be repaired. You can have it recharged which should give you time to perhaps find another unit.

System is maybe 3 years old. Was practically new when w bought the house.

Wow. Is it under warranty? My system had a coil leak and they replaced it because it was under warranty. Three years is too soon to have a problem unless there is system defect. This is the problem I had:
The most common problem cited is the presence of leaks in evaporator coils. Consumers cite expensive and frequent repairs.
They replaced the evaporator coil for no charge. I suggest you google your AC and see if something comes up. Good luck.

Have you checked your house insulation?

P25OUA5...I would HIGHLY recommend Anwoth Services for your a/c technical needs if you have any other issues. Robert is the friggin' bomb-digitty!!!

https://www.anwothservices.com/

Shit the recharge, I’ve bought the stuff before. It comes in a box. It’s a couple hundred and my guy only used a portion of it to recharge my system and kept the rest. In TX finding an honest and not a straight up robbing POS HVAC guy is extremely tough. Talk about gouging. Most of the HVAC companies are gonna bang you out of a grand no matter what the issue is. Like a damn default price.

8lbs low on refrigerant
Bad exp valve
Tiny leak on the exp coil

Recharged & they're coming back tomorrow to replace the coil. New coil has an internal exp valve.

Your unit should have a standard 5 yr parts warranty.

You don't have to fully charge a system to locate a leak.
A small amount for a trace gas is all a good detector really needs.

Replacement evaporator coil will come with a TXV 'thermal expansion valve', which is the metering device that controls the flow of refrigerant upon the changing indoor conditions 'heat load'.

quote:

Originally posted by Prefontaine:
Shit the recharge, I’ve bought the stuff before. It comes in a box. It’s a couple hundred...

For the initial order, I'll take two pallets (80 jugs) please.

After that, I'll let you decide how much money your willing to lose selling me refrigerant.

quote:

Originally posted by JWF:
Have you checked your house insulation?

It's that refrigerant eating insulation again!!

My 17 year old unit has about zero refrigerant. It uses the old stuff which is at about 100 a lb.
and I need 12 lbs. It’s 17 years old so likely just going to replace the unit.

There is a certain segment of the service industry that actually is taught to determine how much they are going to get from you buy looking at where you live, your house and the car you drive..... I'm not making this up.

Parts Warranty apparently doesn’t mean shit when it comes to refrigerant. My heater side of my ac unit stopped working this past winter. It’s under warranty but the piece they have to replace they have to pull out all the refrigerant and replace once they fix the piece…. So sure the piece is under warranty, but they still quoted almost $2000 to evac and recharge system. I called around and apparently that’s normal

Sucks because it’s Arizona and maybe like once a year I might kick my heater on for a week or something just to take the chill out of the air at night. It’s not like it’s freezing here

Our AC system crapped out after three and a half years. Parts were covered by warranty, but labor was close to a thousand bucks.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
Our AC system crapped out after three and a half years. Parts were covered by warranty, but labor was close to a thousand bucks.

My capacitor crapped out after 3.5 years. The warranty covered the $30ish part, but I got stuck with the $200ish callout fee. It's just not much of a warranty when it covers 15% of the total cost.

Don't get me wrong, it was worth every penny since it was summer in Houston. I have two units so since the guy was already there and it was an inexpensive part I had the other one replaced too.

We had the upstairs unit replaced a few years ago.
It came with 10 years parts and 5 year labor warranty.