Question:
have a question about home warrantees. I had one bought
for me as part of my house sale, and now they want to
re-sign me up with a home warrantee agan (the warrantee
company, American Home Shield).
For $229 / year they want to cover the major systems,
majors appliances, and such. They only one that I think might
be worth it is the air conditioning system outside the
house, the compressor unit. I've heard those can get pretty
expensive to replace.
So, my question is, what do you think about the price, versus
my chance of losing my air compressor? I have a Trane
air compressor, and the house is 10 years old. We live in
Texas and use it fairly heavily from May - Oct or so.
My house is 2200 sq ft, and I change the filter regularly.
I don't know the unit number off hand, but it was very
energy efficient 10 years ago, it was one of the better units.
I had it checked out last year and the guy said everything
looked pretty ood on it, he oiled the fan above it,
and said that it was starting pretty well.
How long do Trane air compressors last? If I will need
a new one within an average of let's say 5 years,
and it costs $2,000 to do that, then roughly
$230 x 5 = $1150, or saving me $850 or so.
How much does it take to replace a air compressor unit
outside, including parts, labor, etc?
Answer:
I have a Trane, it is 3 years old and was bought to replace my old General
Electric (which was actually a Trane with a GE label) that failed after 22
years. I live in southern Canada where the air conditioning gets to rest for
6 months a year, but the last half of its life it was overworked because of
an addition on the house. We decided it was more economical to just work it
to death rather than to replace it while there was still life in it. It
often ran 24 hours 7 days a week to keep up with summer temperatures. My
replacement was larger and more efficient. Whether an insurance is practical
or not, I cannot make recommendation.
