This is a question we sometimes hear from customers who are looking to lower household costs. It makes sense for people to inquire about purchasing used AC equipment since so many other expenses for a home can be reduced by buying used. A car for example. Or furnishings. So why not buy a “previously owned” air conditioner, especially at times when people are looking closer at their budgets?
Well, there are many reasons not to buy a used air conditioner, and not a single HVAC contractor recommends it. Buying used when it comes to HVAC in Plattsburgh, NY is a major money loser in the short and long term. Below are a few reasons why:

Spring arrived a few days earlier on the calendar this year. But that’s only the “official” first day of spring, a point in the Earth’s journey around the Sun. Our local weather doesn’t obey the calendar, and the cold weather blows through here sometimes until May. But spring is still the season of air conditioning tune-ups and inspections, no matter what the weather is like. Without fail, the summer heat will arrive, and you’ll want your air conditioning system in peak shape to handle it.
Fall has officially arrived and this is an important time of the year if you’re a
Now here’s an unpleasant problem you may run into during the last days of summer: an air conditioning system that doesn’t work because the compressor has died. The compressor is the literal heart of a cooling system, since it’s the component that causes refrigerant to circulate through the system, turning a cool low-pressure liquid into a hot high-pressure gas. When a compressor is fried because of a burnt-out motor, an air conditioner turns into nothing more than a large fan.
Ductwork is what originally allowed air conditioning and heating systems to spread conditioned air throughout a house, rather than concentrating it in one place. The earliest ducted systems were nothing more than metal pipes extending from basement furnaces (or even just fireplaces) that allowed heat to rise to different rooms in a building. Today, forced-air central AC and heating systems use powerful air handlers and efficient ducts to see that comfort is sent throughout a house.
“Short-cycling? What’s that?” We know it sounds like a strange circus act or a short-distance bicycling competition. But it’s a term for faulty behavior from a cooling system. If you hear your home’s AC starting and stopping multiple times over an hour, that’s short-cycling. This isn’t something you want to happen, since it spells trouble for your
When an air conditioner loses its cooling power on a hot summer day, or even loses all of its power, it can be a serious emergency. You don’t want to be stuck for long in your home without cooling when the outdoor heat is rising. What can you do?
The winter weather certainly hung around for a long time, didn’t it? Nobody likes to deal with snow that far into the year, but we’re finally hitting the warm weather stride here in June. If you haven’t arranged for a visit from one of our HVAC experts to give your air conditioner a pre-season tune-up and inspection, it’s definitely not too late! The hottest weather is ahead of us, and as long as you’ve got your AC in good condition with routine maintenance before it starts to put in the heavy work, you should be in great shape for the season.
Central heating and air conditioning is one of the greatest inventions in the modern home (maybe not at the level of indoor plumbing, but we’re not here to debate old sayings). One comfort system can distribute cooled and heated air to rooms throughout a house.
The weather is warming up here during last weeks of spring. The hot days are still yet to come as we move toward July, but you can expect to have your air conditioning system hard at work before then.
