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Your previous outdoor condensor had a compressor that was shorted to ground, would not run and was tripping the breaker. The new condensor was installed on June 26. We only replaced the outdoor unit, nothing indoors at all. I personally explained to you that since your 2 indoor coils were both R410A rated and that you didn't have a history of any indoor coil refrigerant leaks, you did not have to replace the indoor coils, which would save you about $2500 in materials and labor (an additional day). I was personally in that attic and you did have a secondary drain pan with a piped drain as required by code and there were no signs of any previous leaks or blockages. The previous outdoor condensor and the coils were 12 years old.
1st call on 7/6/2018: The upstairs thermostat was set for cooling at a temperature of 56 degrees when Dave arrived. The breaker to the outdoor a/c unit was tripped. You reported to Dave that you had reset it multiple times. Since the old unit had shorted and had tripped the breaker multiple times and even though the new unit was drawing less than 1/2 the breaker rated amperage and was still tripping the breaker, Dave replaced the breaker even though that was not part of our original contract at no charge. He explained that you can't set your a/c thermostat below 70 degrees.
2nd Call: Sunday 8/4/18, you called saying you had water dripping from your ceiling. Dave was there on a Sunday within a few hours of your call. He found the auxiliary drain pan completely full of water, indicating a plugged drain line. The main drain line that serves both the upper floor coil and the auxiliary drain pan line was clogged about 15 feet below the upper floor a/c coil. He cut the line, removed the clog and refitted the pipe back together. He explained to your wife that a/c drain lines will all eventually clog and that the best preventative measure to keep this from happening again is to install a "wet switch" device in the drain pan. If it senses water in the pan (which should never have water in it at all unless the drain is plugged) it will shut the system down. This device is re-usable and reset-able, but it is not required by code if the pan has a piped drain. He told her that would cost about $300 additional and he had one on his truck; she declined and said to just put it back the way it was.

In closing, we were hired to replace the outdoor condensor only, which took an entire day. Replacing the indoor coils, refrigeration lines, drain lines, etc. would have added an additional days labor for 2 men and at least $2,500 in additional cost. When we are trying to save you money, we don't do additional work that we were not hired to do. We didn't service the furnaces or indoor coils as they were working and in reasonable condition for a 12 year old system that should last 20+ years. There were no signs of a backed up or clogged drain and it drained for the next 5 weeks. Unfortunately, it plugged up about 5-1/2 weeks later.

For example: if you hire us to do a tune-up on a furnace, do you want us to service everything at that address? Do you want us to take a 1 hour job and turn it in to a 3 or 4 hour job? Taking a $79 job and turning it into a $300+ job?

Thompson's Comfort Connection commented on 08/09/2018