How much do you pay for a typical HVAC service call

Question

Several of my central air units are not blowing cold air. They are low on refridgerant. The company I've been using charges about $300+ to give the units a charge. That's about $100 in labor and $200-$250 in refridgerant. It seems kind of high to me.

How much do you pay for a similar service?

George W. · Answer

I'd love to clear a few things up here because theres alot of misconceptions about HVAC #1 price is fairly irrelevant to any given part of the country. One state a hvac business might be 40-60% cheaper to operate an hvac business in than another depending on where you are geographically. #2 you are required by law to have an epa608 certification in order to buy, handle and work on refrigerant. There are federal regulations that need to be met when you are handling it. Any refgirant is horrible for the environment so proper handling of it is very important. If You buy r22 on Ebay and decide to start charging units you need to have that epa608 certification and you are supposed to keep track and records of the refrigerant to you've used. Some sellers on Ebay will not even sell it to you unless you have the epa card or if you sign a waiver. The fines for venting refrigerant are very large and you can get into trouble. You can get in trouble just got not owning the recovery machines If you're working with refrigerant. #3 you cannot mix other refrigerant with r22. Your ac condenser and evaporator coil were not designed for different mixtures of crappy Chinese refrigerant and the two different chemicals will react. as all chemical compounds do when you mix them. They do make r22 replacement refrigerant but you are supposed to recover all of the old refrigerant and evacuate the system before charging. #4 all the gauges are is a pressure temperature chart. All it does is tell you what the saturated vapor and liquid temp are at a given pressure. In order to check the charge you have to check superheat on non-txv systems and sub cooling on txv type systems. #5 the only way to accurately charge a refrigeration unit is by weight. Yes you can charge by subcooling and super heat but the only way to charge it to factory design is by weight. So if you're hvac guy isnt using a scale when he's charging your unit and checking superheat, subcooling you're being bamboozled and all the hvac guy is doing is making sure it feels right.#6 if you're compressor goes bad you are better off changing the entire system. When a compressor fails it burns the oil out and can turn acidic when you install a new compressor. Then the contaminated oil is in the whole system and will make you're new refrigerant turn into a mess in no time ensuring a short life span on the new unit. #7 I'd say 50% of the time someone has no air conditioning at all it's an electric issue. Either a bad capacitor, contactor, thermostat etc. All simple things to fix. The other 40% of the time the ac doesnt work well is duct related. poor duct work. I'd say less than 10% of the ac systems i work on need refrigerant charged.

Lauren Kormylo · Answer

That seems like a reasonable price. As John said, the old R22 Freon is very expensive. Since you have multiple houses, you can buy cylinders of it on ebay, if you think supplying it yourself to the technician will be cheaper overall. I'd ask how much he's charging per pound.

Paul Sandhu · Answer

@Lucas Carl These central air units are made by Coleman. They are from Nineteen and Seventy Two.

Paul Sandhu · Answer

Great idea. R22 is about $12 a pound on Ebay, delivered. The HVAC is charging me about $100/lb. I'm considering learning how to do this HVAC work myself. I've seen it done before. Pretty simple. Check the pressure of the R22. Turn on the a/c. Connect the hoses from the R22 to the mixing box and to the a/c unit. Start filling. Stop when the proper pressure is reached. Disconnect everything.

Matthew Paul · Answer

you need to be licensed HVAC to buy R22

Clinton Fisher · Answer

A tree frog bridged the contacts on a capacitor on my system the capacitor and service charge $395.

John Teachout · Answer

The last repair I had done on an R22 system cost me about $600. It needed a complete refill. If your HVAC company is still charging a ridiculous price for R22 they're ripping you off because while R22 did get crazy expensive for a while, there are now other refrigerants that can be added to R22 and also refrigerants that can replace all the R22 but it requires a purge of the system. These replacement refrigerants are more in line with the cost of R410A.

Luke Carl · Answer

@Paul Sandhu my oldest hvac is 22 maybe 23 years old and still cranking. I have two in that age range. Most of them are 5 years old or less. I’m a fan of replacing.

Luke Carl · Answer

@Paul Sandhu I put in a work order with tenant cloud or text my guy in the mountains depending on which market I’m dealing with and pay them when it’s done. Cost of doing business. I trust my guys and don’t ask questions other than “how much and how old is it” If the unit is more than 8 years old and less than say 12 and the repair is under $700 I might fix it. If it’s over $800 I’ll probably replace it. Over $800 and over 12 is a firm replacement.

Michael Baum · Answer

I pay $119 for the visit but it includes a furnace service as well as A/C service.Our old York gave out last year so we had to replace it.