Repair it or replace it: the five questions we answer before we tell you

Why we wrote the rule down

A repair-or-replace decision made in a hot house, with a technician standing there, is a bad place for improvisation. So Cook’s trains every technician on the same five questions and expects the answers to be written on the ticket, whether the house is in Palm Coast or Live Oak. You’re entitled to see them.

Question one: how old is it, really?

The outdoor unit’s data plate carries a manufacture date, and the technician reads it rather than guessing from the look of the cabinet. Then it’s adjusted for where the unit has lived. A condenser that has spent its life a few blocks from the ocean in Ormond Beach or St. Augustine has aged faster than the calendar says; one in a shaded yard in Palatka with a filter changed on schedule has aged slower. As a rough line, coastal units are considered old at about twelve years and inland units at about fifteen.

Question two: what does this repair cost against what’s left?

The repair quote is compared not to the price of a new system but to the likely remaining life of the old one. A few hundred dollars on a system with five good years left is a fine repair. The same few hundred on a system with a corroded coil, a compressor drawing high amps and two previous repairs in the file is money put into something that’s already leaving. The technician writes the repair cost on one side of the ticket and an honest estimate of remaining life on the other.

Question three: what failed, and what does it say about the rest?

Not all failures are equal. A capacitor, a contactor, a fan motor or a clogged drain says nothing about the system’s health; those parts wear out on good systems and bad ones. A compressor failure, a leaking evaporator coil or a cracked heat exchanger is different: it’s expensive, and it usually means the rest of the system has seen the same years and the same stress. The second category pushes toward replacement; the first almost never does.

Question four: what refrigerant is in it?

A system running R-22 is nearly always a replace when anything significant fails, because that refrigerant is scarce and costly and the system is old by definition. A system on R-410A is in the long middle of its life; parts are plentiful and repairs make sense for years. New equipment sold now uses the newer low-GWP refrigerants, which doesn’t make an R-410A system obsolete, but it does mean a major repair on an older one is a repair on yesterday’s platform.

Question five: how big is the efficiency gap?

A system from the mid-2000s typically carries an efficiency rating well below what the current minimums require, and it runs eight or nine months a year here. The technician doesn’t promise a dollar saving, because that depends on the house, the thermostat habits and the utility. What goes on the ticket is the old rating against the new minimum, so the gap is a number rather than a sales line.

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How the answer gets delivered

If the five questions point to repair, you get the repair, and the technician says why it’s the right call. If they point to replacement, the technician tells you that too, and Jerry follows up with a separate written quote on new equipment, with financing laid out if you want it. If it’s genuinely a coin flip, which happens, the technician says so and often recommends the smaller repair now with a replacement planned for the slow season, so a Gainesville or Jacksonville homeowner isn’t making a big decision in a 90-degree living room.

What never happens: a technician is not compensated differently for a replacement than for a repair, and the repair quote isn’t inflated to make the new system look cheaper. If the company’s reasoning doesn’t match yours, you’re welcome to a second opinion; a frame that can’t survive one isn’t a frame.