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Buy a 5 dollar can of coil cleaner, do that annually, pocket the 100 bucks you would spend on "maintenance" for the replacement unit. Its generally a scam.
I get my HVAC system checked once a year, definitely not $300 and my guy ( http://www.santaair.com/ ) gives tons of advice/reminders about stuff I can do myself to extend the life of my unit. I don’t know 100% what he does but some capacitors have been replaced, Freon gets topped off etc....
I guess it depends on the person but with such an expensive and critical component of my house, I’m happy to pay someone $80 a year to make sure things are running smoothly.
you have 1 system. I wonder if m378 has more than 1. Anywhere from $80-125 per system is typical.
But you are correct that the relatively small amount spent per year is worth a lot in extending the life of a $5-8K piece of equipment.
I get preventive maintenance. Besides extending the life of the expensive equipment and keeping it running at full efficiency -- which minimizes my consumption of electricity -- it almost always gives me advance notice of something that will surely cause a problem later (low refrigerant, obstructed pipe to drain condensation, etc). As already noted, maintenance contract customers tend to jump the queue when there's a problem and also sometimes get discounts.
Besides, I have a damper in the crawl space that has to be manually repositioned between summer and winter. A contortionist is required to access stuff in the crawl space and I'm getting too old for that.
HVAC maintenance should be done ideally twice a year but in a year its necessary. 300$ are an overkill. Though HVAC service by a professional cost you but that quite a lot. Besides it also depends on the condition of your HVAC. Look for a real professional contractor ask your friends to give you some recommendations.
HVAC maintenance should be done ideally twice a year but in a year its necessary. 300$ are an overkill. Though HVAC service by a professional cost you but that quite a lot. Besides it also depends on the condition of your HVAC. Look for a real professional contractor ask your friends to give you some recommendations.
I see it often in the winter - units froze up either due to lower refrigerant or a bad defrost thermistor. The two are easy to tell apart - if your unit is freezing up during the day with no precipitation (like freezing up solidly) it's most likely low on refrigerant. Too many ignore it and their electric bills are extremely high. If it's not going into defrost it's either the thermistor or the board.
Caps are easily checked with a cheap $30-$40 harbor freight multimeter. Tons of videos on YouTube including one I made about how to do it.
You can check the temp delta during the summer as a quick way to determine if you are low on refrigerant - also the unit will frost up when really low. Look for a delta of 15*+ between inside temp and discharge air from the vent.
Or just pay a guy $100 twice a year to check.
What killed my units was the evaporator going bad and leaking. Absolutely nothing you can do to prevent that no matter how much maintenance you have done. $3000 repair (2 units) on 14 year old systems...easy decision to replace the entire thing. The industry is really closed off to homeowner DIY types and parts houses will not sell to homeowners. Markup is extremely high.
I think it would be a plus unless the buyer was planning on switching it out with something else.
Sure, even if they are planning to switch it out the well maintained system may give them a year or so to make another financial commitment. Being a old codger who has sold a number of homes over the years I am convinced that one less negative check on the buyers evaluation sheet can make the difference between a contract or no contract.
At this stage we see home maintenance through the eyes of needing to sell in a future undetermined market
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