May 10, 2022
Especially if you have an older home, components of your AC unit may be cobbled together from different brands. So what?
You can probably guess that this could lead to problems. The parts may not work well together, decreasing comfort, increasing energy bills, and decreasing overall longevity. Also, if one of the units is under warranty and the other is not, you could run into problems with that too!
You might think this advice seems like a tactic for manufacturers (and installers!) to make more money, but there’s a good reason for this. The indoor and outdoor components of your AC are designed to work with each other – they have complementary features that make them both more efficient. This is also called a “matched system.”
Let’s give an example of this. Your AC blower is the part responsible for circulating (blowing) air through the ducts and around your home. It is part of the indoor AC unit. Your AC’s condenser is responsible for releasing your home’s hot air outside, using the refrigerant’s change from a gas to a liquid to remove the heat. Of course, this is part of the outdoor AC unit. Suppose your indoor AC unit and outdoor AC unit are from two different brands. In that case, you run into the problem of the inside blower and the outside condenser having two different operating capacities.
You can also think of it this way: both your indoor and outdoor components of your AC have a SEER rating, which stands for Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio. SEER measures how much cooling your AC unit can do for each unit of energy it uses – the higher the SEER rating, the more efficient your A/C unit. So, if you have an indoor AC unit with a SEER rating of 14 and an outdoor AC unit with a SEER rating of 18, you will not benefit from the higher-efficiency system. (Reduced energy bills, longer lifespan.) It would be like owning a Lamborghini and only being allowed to drive it in the suburbs!
This is why it’s essential to have a matched system to get the full benefit of your AC unit’s features. Not only that, but matched systems are also more reliable and have fewer maintenance issues because the parts are designed to work well together. If you visually check your system’s indoor and outdoor components (either by the stickers on it or by looking up model numbers on ahridirectory.com) and find that they are from different brands, it’s time for an upgrade!
If the indoor and outdoor components of your AC unit are not from the same brand, you’ll experience decreased comfort, decreased system longevity, and increased energy bills in your Phoenix or Tucson home!
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