Would you like to lower your utility bills?
Ask Weather Engineers about energy-efficient air conditioning
in Jacksonville, FL, and surrounding areas
If your air conditioning system was installed a decade ago or more, your monthly utility bills may well be rising steadily, with more frequent (and more expensive!) repairs. But it’s not easy to pinpoint the most cost-effective moment to replace outdated cooling systems.
Repair or replace?
If you’re trying to make this tricky decision, here are a few inside tips from the pure air experts at Weather Engineers:
- Check the 50% + 50% rule for your current system: when an appliance is more than 50% through its lifespan (up to two decades maybe, with luck!), and a repair will cost more than 50% of the purchase price for a new unit, the smartest move is replacement.
- Check the SEER rating of your current system: usually shown on a sticker on the side of the condenser or an information sheet attached to the front of the air handler. Until 2006, a SEER rating of 10 was standard; the federal minimum is now 13, with 30% less electricity consumption and 30% lower cooling bills.
- Check the refrigerant in your current system: from 2010 onwards, manufacturers have been using a new refrigerant that does not deplete the ozone layer, replacing harmful chlorofluorocarbons. As Freon production halted in January 2020 and stockpiles are running low, older equipment can now be topped up only with increasingly scarce and expensive R-22 coolant retrieved from scrapped AC systems.
Solid savings through energy efficiency
Quite simply, SEER ratings indicate the best value for money. The Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio shows the cooling output of an air conditioner during a typical season (65°F – 104°F), divided by the energy used in kilowatt-hours.
Here’s a stand-alone example of the operating costs for two 10,000 BTU air conditioners that run 16 hours a day, 300 days a year. One has the old standard SEER rating of 10, the other is new and energy-efficient, with a high SEER rating of 20:
Talk to the Professionals
For expert advice on saving money with greater comfort and healthier homes in Jacksonville, FL, and surrounding areas, talk to the indoor air experts at Weather Engineers: (904) 478-9613.
