This is the most expensive question a homeowner gets asked, and it's usually asked by the person who profits from one of the answers. Here's how to weigh it yourself.
A well-maintained system at twelve years often has real life left. A neglected one at eight can be finished. Age on its own is a weak signal, and anyone leading with it as the reason to replace is skipping the actual diagnosis.
What failed matters far more. A capacitor, a contactor, a fan motor, a control board — those are repairs on almost any system regardless of age. A failed compressor or a leaking evaporator coil on an older unit is a genuinely different conversation, because those are the expensive components.
Put the repair cost next to the replacement cost and next to how many more years the repair realistically buys. A $400 repair that gets you three more summers is good money. A $2,800 repair on a system with two years left is not.
Our replacement pricing is published by tonnage, plus tax: 1-ton $2,200, 2-ton $4,200, 3-ton $8,500, 4-ton $8,920, 5-ton $9,880. Which size you need comes from a load calculation on your actual house. Knowing those numbers up front means you can do this maths yourself rather than taking anyone's word for it.
Repeated failures in the same season usually mean the real fault was never found, or the system is genuinely at the end. A third repair in one summer is a signal.
A failed compressor on an out-of-warranty system is often the point where replacement wins on arithmetic alone. So is a system still running R-22, which is no longer produced and has become expensive enough that recharging it stops making sense.
If you're planning to be in the house another ten or fifteen years, the efficiency difference between a twenty-year-old system and a new one is real money every month, not a sales line.
A quote for a full replacement produced without anyone opening the unit is not a diagnosis. Neither is "they don't make parts for these any more" offered without a part number checked.
Today-only pricing is a sales technique, not an engineering fact. A system that genuinely needs replacing will still need replacing next week at the same price.
If you have a quote you're unsure about, a second opinion costs a service call — $120, or $190 after hours — and sometimes saves thousands. We do a lot of those, and when the first company was right, we say so.
We'll diagnose it properly and give you both numbers honestly. If the other company was right, we'll tell you that too.
