Broke Down, bought new air conditioners. Some installers are insane. House has 2 complete systems, one up (3.5 Ton) and one down (4 Ton).
The Furnaces and Evaporator coils looked like some children installed them. Complete hack jobs. This was the house contractor!
The units in the house were a "mix master". Originally (mostly) York Components when new, with a fly-by-night coil. Supposedly 12 SEER. The condensers failed after about 7 years and I replaced with 13 SEER units. One of the EVAP coils failed at about 4 years and I think they covered about 25% of the repair (coil itself).
Downstairs system developed condensate issues. The drain pain rusted away. And as I was having repair/replace bids on Tuesday/Wednesday, the upstairs condenser failed.
(Side note: While diagnosing the upstairs unit tripping breaker, I noted a flash in the wrong part of the electrical panel. My 150A main was sparking/arcing!
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Out goes the crappy single stage mix-master, in goes well matched, well installed "middle road" 2-stage units.
I had quotes for single stage from just under $10K for 2 units (4 ton and 3.5 ton) to $23K. 2 stage from $12K to 26K and true Variable speed from $19K to $28K. Most of the high bidders were the usual suspects, Trane and Carrier. I would not entertain any bids from the low end groups (Goodman, etc.) and only RHEEM for the middle of the road.
I went with the Better RHEEM units, (RA17 Communicating, 2 stage). I'll end up with a $500 Tax Credit (woo-hoo?). I expect about a 40% reduction in Air Conditioning energy consumption.