Heating and cooling services across New Orleans

The question we are asked most after a breakdown is whether to repair or replace. Our rule of thumb is simple. A repair that costs a small fraction of a new system, on equipment under about ten years old that runs on current refrigerant, is almost always worth doing. A major repair such as a compressor or an indoor coil on a system past twelve to fifteen years, or any significant refrigerant repair on an old R-22 system, usually is not.

In between, it depends on how the system has been treated, whether it keeps the house dry, and whether the same part has already failed once. We put both numbers in front of you, the repair and the replacement, and let you decide. When replacement is the answer, we size the new system from the house, not from the label on the old one, because many older systems here were oversized and never pulled enough moisture out of the air.

Heating follows the same logic with one difference: a furnace that runs a few weeks a year can last a long time, so a cracked heat exchanger or a failed control board on a sound furnace is a judgment call, and a heat pump is often the better replacement when the AC is due anyway.