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Three things decide it: age, refrigerant type, and the repair cost against the value of the remaining life. Under 10 years old on R-410A with a repair below about a third of replacement cost — repair usually wins. Over 15 years, running R-22, or facing a compressor failure — replacement almost always costs less across five years. Our technicians earn nothing extra on equipment sales, so what you get is the arithmetic, not a pitch.

A cracked heat exchanger is an automatic replacement — it's a carbon monoxide risk and no honest contractor will patch it. Otherwise, the same maths applies: if the furnace is past 15 years and the repair exceeds a third of a new unit, replacement is usually cheaper over the remaining life. Under 10 years with a failed igniter, flame sensor or inducer motor, repair almost always makes sense.

Fifteen to twenty years when it's sized correctly, commissioned properly and maintained annually. Eight to twelve when it's oversized, overcharged and never serviced — which describes most systems we're called to. The single biggest factor isn't the brand, it's whether the original installer ran a load calculation.

Gas furnaces typically run 15 to 20 years; a well-maintained one can pass 25. Electric furnaces often go 20 to 30 because there's no combustion wear. Annual tune-ups matter more here than on the cooling side — a clogged filter and a dirty flame sensor are what kill most furnaces long before their time.

Shorter. In Phoenix, Las Vegas or Houston, where a condenser runs eight months a year, expect 12 to 15 years rather than 15 to 20. Coastal salt air shortens it further through coil corrosion. Twice-yearly coil cleaning and condenser coil protection can buy back several of those years.

Rising energy bills with no change in usage. Repairs more than once a season. R-22 refrigerant. A system over 15 years old. Humidity that never drops even when the house is cold. And the big one — a failed compressor, where the repair often costs more than half a new system. Any two of these together, and it's worth pricing a replacement.

Yellow burner flame instead of blue. Soot around the unit. A cracked heat exchanger. Rooms that never warm up. Banging or rumbling on startup. Rising gas bills. And any carbon monoxide detector activation — that one is not a maintenance question, it's an evacuate-and-call-us question.

Every three to five years for a typical home — sooner if you've had a renovation, a pest problem, mould, heavy smoking, or you've just moved into a house whose previous owner's habits you'd rather not inherit. Ducts don't need annual cleaning, and any contractor pushing that is selling, not diagnosing.

Electrical connections and amp draw. Capacitor and contactor condition. Refrigerant charge, superheat and subcool. Static pressure across the system. Blower motor and wheel condition. Evaporator and condenser coil cleanliness. Condensate drain and float safety switch. Combustion analysis and carbon monoxide on gas appliances. Thermostat calibration. You get every reading in writing.

Coil cleaning, filter replacement, drain-line clearing and treatment, refrigerant level check, electrical connection inspection, capacitor test under load, blower wheel clean, thermostat check, and a temperature split measurement to confirm the system is actually delivering what it should. Roughly 60 to 90 minutes done properly — anyone doing it in twenty is spraying the coil and leaving.

New equipment is transitioning to lower-GWP refrigerants such as R-454B, but R-410A systems already installed are absolutely fine to keep running and service — supply for existing systems continues. This is nothing like the R-22 phase-out, where prices climbed steeply. If someone is telling you to replace a healthy R-410A system because of refrigerant rules, get a second opinion. Ours is free.

Four things, in this order. Is the thermostat set to the right mode and actually powered? Is the filter clogged? Has the breaker tripped? Is the outdoor unit's disconnect pulled or the condensate float switch triggered? That covers a genuine share of "broken" systems and costs you nothing. Anything past that — refrigerant, capacitors, gas — needs a licensed technician, not a video.