Love the channel..I am a DIYer but have not attempted replacing a system/unit so my question is i have a 15 year old Lennox. Still cools here in hot Georgia but where do I need to begin when this thing starts to give up the ghost? Appreciate any input....

Hi, we have a situation with our 8 yr old ac unit. It stopped cooling and I called an older hvac technician that we had used on another property. He came out and looked at the condensing unit and said the caps were loose on the high /low lines and as a result we lost most of the freon. We paid $800 for the freon and trip charge. Well about a week and a half later it quit cooling again. (We are in Dallas in the midst of a heat wave) We called him out again and he said the board red light code said the board is bad. He ordered a new board and came out again to install it. Then it had a yellow code I think, and this is where it gets murky, I don't really know what the reason is (I'm not sure he knew either) Anyway apparently the unit is low on freon again and he said there must be a leak somewhere. So Wednesday 7/29 he's supposed to come again and put dye in the line and try to find the leak, but we will have to pay for more freon - potentially another $800 which we don't really have because we've lost our main jobs and are doing side gigs to pay bills. Shouldn't he have checked the lines with the dye the first time to cover all the leak possibilities? to avoid this thing from happening. We think he should refill the freon on his dime from his negligence to check all possibilities the first time instead of assuming just the caps were at fault? We'll be happy to work with him for his time (he charges very reasonably), but freon is horribly expensive. What do you think? We thought about calling out the company that originally installed it because the parts are still under warranty, be he said their labor cost would be 3-4x his labor cost and therefore still more expensive. But there is trust lost from them leaving the caps loose to speed up a freon call back.

Hello everyone, I'm curious what kind of quotes you guys have gotten for a new hvac system? Im in a smaller town in Wyoming and i recently got a quote for 18,000 to replace my gas furnace and air condition with what seems like a pretty basic system. I really cant afford to spend that much. I feel like I can tackle this myself so I just wanted to get some advice. I appreciate this guys channel and it has helped me to keep my system going the past several years, but its looking like its time to replace! Any input would be much appreciated. Thanks!