A new system sized for your house, installed by techs who will still be here in five years. Free in-home estimate.
Estimates
Serving Phoenix, AZ
# ROC 102297
Rated by BBB
A new air conditioner in Phoenix should be chosen on three things: correct sizing for your actual house, installation quality, and who you can call in year six. Brand matters less than any of those.
CMI-AIR installs and replaces residential air conditioning across Phoenix and the Valley. Every quote starts with a load calculation on your home, not a guess based on the tonnage of the unit being removed.
Most people arrive here for one of these reasons.
Equipment past fifteen years in Phoenix has done more work than the same equipment would do in twenty years almost anywhere else. Parts get harder to source, efficiency has dropped well below what a current system delivers, and every repair is money spent on something near the end of its life.
Two or three repairs in two summers is the clearest replacement signal there is. It usually means multiple components are reaching the end of their service life at the same time, which is what you would expect from parts that have accumulated the same run hours.
R-22 is no longer manufactured and the price has climbed steeply. Any future repair that involves refrigerant on an R-22 system costs more than the same repair on current equipment, and that changes the repair-or-replace math well before the system reaches fifteen years.
If one room or one floor has never cooled properly, a bigger air conditioner will not fix it. The cause is almost always duct design, and replacing the equipment without addressing that means paying for a new system and keeping the complaint. We check the ductwork before we quote.
A system losing efficiency year over year costs you money every month it stays in place. At some point the annual operating cost difference between what you have and what is available now covers a meaningful share of the replacement. We will run that comparison rather than asking you to take it on faith.
If the house holds temperature in May and falls behind in July, the system is either undersized, losing capacity, or fighting duct losses. Which one it is matters, because the fix is different for each and only one of them is a new air conditioner.
When the compressor goes on a system over twelve years old, the labor to get in there is most of the cost. Putting a new compressor in old equipment often means paying installation-level labor for a system you will replace in three years anyway.
Four things move the number more than the brand on the box.
Tonnage. Driven by square footage, insulation, window area, orientation and ceiling height. This is what the load calculation determines.
Efficiency rating. A higher SEER2 system costs more up front and less to run. In a climate with a five-month cooling season, that payback arrives faster than it would almost anywhere else, which is why the higher-efficiency tier is worth pricing here even if you would skip it in a milder market.
Single-stage, two-stage or variable speed. Single-stage is cheapest and runs flat out or not at all. Variable speed costs more, holds temperature more evenly, dehumidifies better, and is quieter. In a two-story Phoenix house with an upstairs that never quite cools, staging often solves a problem that a bigger single-stage unit will not.
What else has to change. Ductwork condition, electrical capacity, the pad, the line set, the thermostat, and whether the air handler location is workable. This is where surprise costs come from, and it is why we look at the ducts and the panel before quoting.
We put all of this in the written quote rather than leaving allowances open, so the number you approve is the number you pay.
The $5,000 rule is a rule of thumb, not a standard. Multiply the age of the system by the cost of the repair. If the result is over 5,000, replace it. If it is under, repair it.
A twelve-year-old system with a $400 repair gives you 4,800, so you repair it. The same system with a $500 repair gives you 6,000, so you replace it.
It is a useful sanity check and a poor decision-maker on its own, because it ignores three things that matter a lot in Phoenix: whether the system uses R-22, whether the failure is a compressor or coil where labor dominates the cost, and how the run hours here age equipment faster than the calendar suggests. Use it as a first filter, then run the actual five-year numbers on both paths.
Replace when any two of these are true:
Repair when the system is under [12], the failure is a single component, and it has been reliable until now.
With a load calculation, not by matching the old unit.
A Manual J load calculation accounts for square footage, insulation levels, window area and orientation, ceiling height, ductwork location, shading, and how many people live there. It produces the actual cooling load of your house in BTUs.
Two reasons this matters more than it sounds.
Oversizing is the more common mistake, and it is worse than it looks. An oversized system cools the air fast, satisfies the thermostat, and shuts off before it has run long enough to pull humidity out. You get short cycling, uneven temperatures, more wear on the compressor, and a house that feels clammy at 76 degrees. Contractors oversize because it is the safe-feeling error and nobody calls back to complain that the AC is too big.
Matching the old unit repeats the old mistake. If the last system was wrong, or if the house has had insulation, windows or an addition since it went in, the old tonnage is not the answer. It is just a number somebody else picked.
On matched systems: replacing only the outdoor condenser and keeping an old indoor coil is cheaper and it undercuts the efficiency rating you paid for. We will quote it if that is what you want, and we will tell you what it costs you in performance.
A tech walks the house, checks the ductwork and electrical panel, runs the load calculation, and looks at the install location. [60 to 90] minutes. Free, and you get the written quote [same day or next day].
You get [two or three] options at different price and efficiency levels, each with the installed price and the efficiency rating. We will tell you which one we would put in our own house and why.
We pull the [City of Phoenix or applicable jurisdiction] mechanical permit. Most installs are scheduled within [X] days.
Old equipment removed and hauled away. New equipment set, line set [replaced or flushed], electrical connected, condensate routed, thermostat installed and configured. Most single-system replacements are one day.
This is the step that separates a good install from a bad one. Refrigerant charge verified by weight and confirmed with superheat and subcooling readings. Airflow measured and adjusted to the manufacturer’s spec. Static pressure checked. Full cycle test. You get the readings in writing.
We register the equipment with the manufacturer so the warranty is valid, and we handle the [municipal] inspection.
Call (602) 437-0066 or use the form. If your system has already failed and the house is hot, say so and we will handle the immediate problem first.
A 2,000 square foot Phoenix home usually lands on a [3.5 to 4] ton system, but square footage alone does not determine size. Insulation, window area and orientation, ceiling height and duct location all move the load, and two 2,000 square foot houses in the same neighborhood can need different tonnage. That is what the load calculation is for.
One day for most single-system replacements. Two days if ductwork is being modified, electrical needs upgrading, or the air handler is being relocated.
[12] to [15] years for a well-maintained system, against a national expectation closer to [15] to [20]. The difference is run hours. Systems that skip annual maintenance in this climate tend to fall at the low end or below it.
Higher than you would elsewhere. With a five-month cooling season, the efficiency premium pays back faster here than in most of the country. Price at least two tiers and compare the up-front difference against the estimated annual operating cost. We will run that math with you rather than just recommending the top of the line.
Yes. Replacing a system requires a mechanical permit and an inspection. We pull it and handle the inspection. Any contractor who suggests skipping the permit is telling you something useful about how they work.
Often yes, if both are near end of life and they share the air handler. Doing it in one visit costs less than two separate jobs and it guarantees a matched system. If the furnace has years left, keep it and we will quote the cooling side alone.
Sometimes the answer is a ductless mini-split for that space rather than a bigger central system. It depends on the room, the duct runs and what is causing the problem. That is one of the things the in-home estimate is for.
CMI-AIR is the residential division of Consolidated Mechanical, a local, family-owned commercial air conditioning company with more than 30 years of experience.
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