When our hubby & I purchased our house, the people I was with and I knew that the heating & cooling idea would need to be replaced in the near future.
It is a packaged component that is installed outside.
The component is quite large, extremely noisy & shows some age & wear & tear. It’s not overly charming but it manages to keep our apartment comfortable for the majority of the year. All of us live in an area where the summer time temperatures climb into the triple digits with horrible humidity. All of us rely on air conditioner for the majority of the year. The most serious weather is a challenge for our cooling unit. It runs just about non stop but manages well enough. Our Winter time seasons are short & the temperature rarely drops below 45. On the rare occasions when the people I was with and I get colder weather, our heating idea tends to freeze up. All of us then shut it down & attempt to thaw it out with hair dryers. We’ve added an electric furnace that simulates a wood burning stove in the home office. That offers enough extra heat for us to get by. Just recently, the people I was with and I noticed that the idea was running but providing no cool air. When I called for repair, I assumed the specialist would take a single look at our ancient idea & tell myself and others we’d need a current a single. She diagnosed the component & found a small refrigerant leak. She wasn’t able to tell whether it was current or an ancient leak. She said that the idea is far too ancient to find replacement parts & advocated just adding refrigerant & hoping for the best. We’re now hoping to get a couple more years of operation out of the heating/cooling unit. It would truly be wise to start looking into the cost of replacement. I just suppose it’s going to be a truly costly project, & I’m not looking forward to it.