When to replace 3 ton unit

American Standard, 3 ton unit pulling 12 amps of 14.4 max. 11 year old system, 70 degree day. Covers about 1000 square feet. 5 ton unit only pulling 6 amps. Tech says I need new 3 ton unit. Is 12 amps usage indicative of unit failure?

 

High amps by itself is not a reason to replace a system. Did the tech do a full system check? Always get a second opinion.

Was he concerned about the 5 ton readings? That seems way low for an operating system.

 

Welcome to the forums.

Current draw of a unit can be used as a diagnostic aid but is not used as a definite reason to replace the unit. A defective capacitor will cause the unit to draw high current.

What is the problem with the old 3 ton unit ?
A picture of the ID tag on the condensor would be helpful. http://www.doityourself.com/forum/el...-pictures.html
If you can't post a picture..... post the complete model number.

 

Sounds like they sent a salesman not a technician to you house.

 

Bet that guy got paid commission on sales.
It's ashamed but I've seen it first hand to often.
One guy showed up get's out of the truck with nothing but a flashlight in his hand.
He opened the crawl space door and looked in but never went all the way in, never attached gauges to anything, or even go inside the house or the attic where the air exchanger was.
Walks back to the truck and stays there for almost an hour, then rings the door bell and hands us a bill for $200.00 for a service call and an estimate for a whole new system because according to him the ducts looked like they had been attacked by wild animals and the outside unit had a bad compressor.
I called and complained to his boss and he sent a new young guy that had just started with the company.
He told me they must have sent the Grim Reaper he does this scam to everyone.
Within a few min. he found a bad contactor and had us up and running in less then 10 min.
He even broke it open to show us the burned contacts.
All that was wrong with the duct is his company had used real duct tape not foil tape and one piece had rotted and came loose.
System ran fine for another 5 years until we had a 100 year flood, then I needed a whole new system, god told me so.

 

Here is the photo of the unit's specifics

 

Thanks for the feedback. I posted a photo but not in the reply to your message. Hope you can read sideways.

 

---- Looks good to me.----

 

if you have a lot of extra disposable income then yes go ahead and replace it. It is an R22 system and is over 10 yrs old. Now if you are like most people and live paycheck to paycheck you need to find a service person to come look at your system and properly service it instead of a salesman. Just like theapprentice said it sounds like you are currently speaking with a sales guy not a service guy LOL