Which air conditioner brand should you choose?
Winter is coming and a lot of people decide to replace at this time so just wanted to go over brands of air conditioners and what you should choose. Most people go online and look up consumer reports and find the one with the best reputation. This is a good thing to do and I am not trying to stop you from doing that. But I wanted to go over more the overall process of it. Some things aren't gone over a lot and I figured I would bring them up. This is from the viewpoint of living in Las Vegas and may differ in your area.
Brand Vs Installer
If you are looking for a good brand you may want to look at the people installing the A/C instead. There are many factors and this is a major one and in my opinion more important than the brand. Get a good installing team. Not are they fast, or do they clean up well at the end, etc. You want to know that they know for sure what they are doing when installing it such as do they pull a vacuum down to 500 microns and do they deburr the copper before welding and many more things. One of the biggest I find when I am bidding on jobs is other companies are ready to replace your unit but don't look at the ducts. If you have improper designed ducts you can be paying more on your utilities and shorten the life on your A/C unit. Just because the city had passed your home designs at one point in the past even in recent years doesn't mean they are up to what they could be doing. Doesn't mean that every house needs it but I find it more often than not that there are many improvements that can be done for customers.
In the end you can look at the brand which is definitely a good thing but if you don't have a competent company installing then you might not be saving the money on the more efficient air conditioner as you could be. A less reputable A/C brand installed properly will perform better than a highly regarded A/C brand installed poorly.
Product warranty and availability
Another thing to look for is the warranty. How good is your warranty? All brands come with warranties because guess what? Things do break no matter how good the reputation of the brand and that's why warranties exist. Even when installed perfectly things can still go wrong. Most companies are similar in the warranty years with a few exceptions.
Now here is the next thing. Just because you have a warranty and it will be honored does not mean it will be done fast. I have done warranty compressors where they have the customer wait 5-7 business days as it is not "in stock". And if you think you can overnight them think again when your shipping a 80 lbs+ compressor as that won't be covered by warranty usually. So make sure your brand that you choose has enough availability in your area and that they don't have a reputation for ordering parts when things go out. Some brands may be big but if there is only one supplier in a city then they are under high demand and probably need to order parts a lot as they run out.
Don't listen to everything a tech says because he knows more than you. A lot of cases they are right even if it doesn't sound right but not every case for sure. A/C companies go with brands usually as they get discounted prices when they become a dealer for that brand. I currently sell Amana as my brand but I wouldn't knock a lot of other brands because I know at this point the quality of the installation is more important than the brand. Make sure that they can explain the whole process and take the time to educate you as well. If they are unwilling to then they may not be for you. Hope this helps you and if you have other ideas and tips send me a message and I'll go over them as well too.
