My nephews (5 and 7 yrs old) from Wyoming came to visit my wife and I for 3 weeks. My sister came for the last week of the trip and a day after she arrived, our AC decided to stop working. We're just north of Houston, TX and the heat index has been at or above 100°F since it happened. It's been like this since last Monday. We've recorded temps higher than 99°F in our upstairs hallway. Our AC system is 5 yrs. old and is supposed to be a high-quality, high-efficiency, communicating system made in USA. I advise against EVER buying and HVAC system from Johnson Controls or any of its affiliated companies (shown below). If your local HVAC contractor offers to sell you a system made by any of the following, run.
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Our system uses an AC21 outdoor unit by Coleman. This unit was discontinued by the manufacturer and the part(s) needed to fix it take 5-7 days to acquire because the local supply house doesn't stock them. Our options were to wait on the parts or have the manufacturer replace the outdoor unit for us with what they consider a "comparable" 5-ton unit. They seriously believe that what equates to a stacked mini split condenser unit is comparable to our 5-ton communicating variable-speed 21 seer outdoor unit. I don't think so Tim. I asked the HVAC contractor what they charge for our system versus what was offered as a replacement, and the difference in price was staggering. If we went with the replacement unit they offered, we'd lose the communicating functionality, lose our labor warranty, take a hit on efficiency, and have to pay the contractor to install the replacement unit.
The contractor was kind enough to bring us a portable unit, too bad it's a bit of a doozy. I ended up having to use about 1/4 of a roll of aluminum tape to keep the exhaust duct from falling off and the unit doesn't produce much cool air. We ended up purchasing an 8K BTU portable from Home Depot and borrowing a 10K BTU unit from a family member and have all three units running downstairs currently. It's loud AF with the three units and multiple fans going, but at least we can sleep downstairs in the mid to high 70°s until they can get the equipment (hopefully) fixed. Coleman is offering little to no remedies other than waiting, the HVAC contractor says it's in Coleman's hands, and the supplier refuses to acknowledge if the parts have actually been shipped from the manufacturer. It's annoying when you spend so much money on something that's supposed to be high quality and durable, and you end up sitting in a hot ass house for over a week waiting for parts in peak Texas summer. Good damn thing we have the portable units for now. I'll probably go nuts when I shut off the portable units and it's quiet in the house again.
Sorry for the long rant, I'm just ready for this shit to be over with.
