Have you ever heard one of your service techs brag about fixing a 15-year-old system and how much the customer appreciated it? The tech didn’t know it, but he was doing the customer a disservice.
Here is why:
A 15-year-old system is kind of like having a car with 1,800,000 miles on it! A heating and cooling system operates about 3,000 hours per year. If you drove your car 3,000 hours per year at an average of 40 miles per hour that would be 120,000 miles a year, and over 15 years that would be 1,800,000 miles.
Here is the scenario:
The customer has a 15-year-old, 3 Ton Heat Pump 8 SEER 5.6 HSPF that needs an $800 repair. The operating cost for this unit is $2,376 per year. We quoted a replacement 3 Ton Heat Pump 15 SEER 9.0 HSPF with an operating cost of $1,176 per year for $10,000. The difference in operating cost for the old unit and the new unit is $2,367 - $1,176 = $1,191 x 3 years = $3,573. They are looking at a $800 repair cost to get the system running now and, in all likelihood, at least another $800 in repairs over the next 3 years.
Let’s do the math:
