We sold our home and are needing to rent. We live in the very hot Southwest and A/C is a must. We found the ideal rental. size and location are perfect. Rentals are very hard to come by in our area. We don't care about granite and all the extras just the right space, working A/C and internet. The A/C had been set at 80 down and 83 up when we got there. There are 2 compressors outside and 2 furnaces inside. One for each floor. We set the temp down to 72 on each floor. We looked at the house for about an hour. The downstairs went from 80 to 79 and the upstairs stayed at 83. We came back 3.5 hours later,and it had rained (rare in our area) and the downstairs went from 79 to 76 and the upstairs went from 83 to 79. It was still feeling pretty hot especially upstairs. We live about 1 miles form this house and our A/C the same day same time, bigger house and only 1 unit , was able to keep the temp at 75 only turning on maybe 10 minutes out of every hour. We checked and the air is not blowing hard out of the vents on either floor. The air is cool, I would not say very cold but it just is not strong. The upstairs the vents are on the ceiling and the downstairs the vents are on the floor. The upstairs has an open loft and there are vaulted ceilings. The filters were all changed. We looked in one furnace and it was a bit dusty but not dirty by any means. The other furnace was deep in the attic. The compressors are 19 year old each. This worries me because in our area with usage and extreme heat, 15 years seems about max for units. I am renting not owning so it is not my decision. If it were just one floor I would not be as worried but both floors with 2 different units having the same low flow and not as cold at the same time? I do know they last 6 years only the first floor was lived on primarily. I know if I rent he landlord should take care of it, but this is a tight rental market. Landlords have a line of people. Plus my husband is a repairman and he repaired something on this property a few years ago and the owner did the cheapest possible fix to limp by. Im only concerned about the A/C, my husband is handy with just about everything else. Any ideas of the issues? I would pay myself if it needed to be fixed and was under 1k. The landlord said they would have someone look at the a/c but time is ticking and we need a rental soon. I could get another rental but it is much smaller and very far away from work and school. It is just for a year. I would hate to pass up the ideal rental if the A/c has an easy fix or an inexpensive one. Also many of the window do not open (designed that way, not suck, like custom shaped windows) so window A/C is out in most rooms. Thanks for any advice. This sell and rent is so stressful after owning for 15 years but we had to take advantage of the sellers market for once since we will need to move in a year, so we thought it would be the best move to sell high, rent, and buy in a year or so when we move.

I was reading the stickie and it made me wonder. One can go to Wal-Mart, buy a kit containing [censored] and use it to [censored] their car A/C system. There are tutorials in Youtube and elsewhere on the net on this subject and none of them is penalized and sued by EPA. Yet, the only place that does not allow discussing it calls itself DoItYourself forum ... Is this forum under influence of greedy pros who do not want folks to work on their A/C systems? Is it really better to leave these people without guidance (well, they can obtain this knowledge elsewhere, but that's not the point)?