Costs Of AC Repairs

How much will it cost to fix my AC? Is a reasonable question, usually asked in Summer when it becomes obvious that the old AC units are stubbornly refusing to start or wheezily putting out a whisper of lukewarm air when you were hoping for an instant ice age.  The answer is that it really depends which part of the AC is malfunctioning. Something as simple as a replacement fuse could cost as little as fifteen bucks. Something as full on as a replacement Home Air Compressor is going to be over two thousand.  So before we quote we need to come and test your unit(s), starting with the small stuff (we're natural optimists and always hope it's just that fuse) and working our way through the system until we know what the failed components are.  Just to give you a rough idea there is an often quoted figure saying the average household reported paying 356 dollars.  That's great but the problem with averages is that this could mean that's what most people paid, or that most people paid either the top figure in the thousands or the bottom figure of only a few dollar. So we don't rely much on average costs; we're pros and we like to actually work out what's wrong before putting a price tag on it.

Freon
The price for changing the refrigerant in your AC is often quoted as somewhere around two to three hundred dollars but once again that depends.  Simply topping up the Freon is fairly straightforward but the question is always 'why does it need topping up?' and if it is a question of finding and fixing a leak that has led to low Freon levels then the costs rise.

Compressor
The compressor is a potentially expensive repair because a replacement compressor will take the costs up to around and over one and a half thousand dollars depending on the size of the unit. Don't panic just yet though because full compressor failure is relatively rare and it's just as likely that the compressor itself is fine but the compressor hard start kit is the problem and that's more likely to be a couple of hundred. We always start by looking to the cheaper components for failure.
 
Circuit Board and Thermostat
The good news is that most of the electrics of the AC unit aren't wildly expensive to repair. Most are simply replaced so if the issue is one of fuses, relays, or circuit breakers then this is a cheap issue that may even be in the tens of bucks.  Even a full circuit board replacement at under four hundred and a new thermostat will be around half of that.

Evaporating Coil and Motor
There are different motors and since they have the most moving parts they are likely to suffer from age at some point.  The condensing unit's motor fan, the air handler's motor fan, and the fan motor on the outside of the condensing unit are all mid range replacement costs in the 150 to 350 dollar range.  The expensive problems come when the evaporating coil itself is the issue because then the prices can quickly rise above a thousand dollars and up.