Air conditioners fail one component at a time, and the price gap between those components is enormous. A capacitor costs a few hundred dollars to replace. A compressor can cost ten times that.
This section explains what each part does, how to recognize when yours is failing, and what a fair replacement price looks like. We break down where the money in a repair bill actually goes, because a $25 part on a $300 invoice makes more sense once you see the arithmetic. Where a repair stops being worth it and replacement makes better sense, we say so.
Bad AC capacitor symptoms are distinctive enough that you can usually identify the problem from your driveway. The classic one is an outdoor unit that hums without the fan turning. That matters financially. A capacitor is a $150 to $400 repair. A compressor is $1,500 to $3,000. The symptoms overlap enough that contractors occasionally quote…
A dirty evaporator coil is one of the most common reasons an air conditioner cools poorly, and one of the least likely to be noticed. Unlike the outdoor unit, which you walk past every day, the evaporator sits inside your air handler where nobody looks. The symptoms show up as weaker cooling, longer run times,…
Your AC condensate drain line handles something most people never think about: the several gallons of water your air conditioner pulls out of the air on a humid day. That water has to go somewhere. The drain line is the PVC pipe that carries it from the indoor unit to a place outside, a floor…
AC capacitor replacement cost runs $150 to $400 for a standard professional job. The part inside that price costs $15 to $60. That gap is the reason this repair generates more suspicion than almost any other. People look up the part online, see $25, then get a $350 invoice and wonder what happened. Some of…
AC compressor replacement cost typically runs $1,500 to $3,000 installed for a residential system, though the range stretches from about $1,200 on a small, accessible unit to $4,500 or more on a large or hard-to-reach system. That’s a big number, and it comes with a harder question attached: on many systems, replacing the compressor costs…
If your air conditioner hums but the fan doesn’t spin, or the system trips off after a few minutes, a failed capacitor is one of the first things a technician will check. It’s the most common electrical failure in residential AC systems. The part itself costs $15 to $60. Professional replacement usually runs $150 to…