Heating installation resulted in A/C not working

[Linda Rose3]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? CA
After a new furnace was installed and the appropriate components hooked up to the existing air conditioner, the air conditioner no longer works. The installation took place in Feb so I had no need to use the A/C until a heat wave in May. When I called the owner of the company, he came out and spent nearly 2 hours tinkering around and then came back the next day for another 30 min. His diagnosis is a leak in the air conditioner. He's saying the unit is old (yes it is) and has a leak - just a coincidence that it happened after the furnace installation.

Bottom line, before he installed a new furnace, the air conditioner worked just fine. After the installation, it no longer worked. My intention is to file a small claims suit to have the air conditioner replaced. I doubt I would get a brand new air conditioner since the existing one is 30 years old.

Any advice?

 

[ecmst12]

I think the value of a 30 year old AC unit is nothing, and I think you will never be able to prove that the installation guys actually damaged anything. I think it's actually rather unlikely that they DID damage anything and it's about time to replace your AC anyway. Replace it with a more efficient unit and save some money on your electric bill.

 

[sandyclaus]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? CA
After a new furnace was installed and the appropriate components hooked up to the existing air conditioner, the air conditioner no longer works. The installation took place in Feb so I had no need to use the A/C until a heat wave in May. When I called the owner of the company, he came out and spent nearly 2 hours tinkering around and then came back the next day for another 30 min. His diagnosis is a leak in the air conditioner. He's saying the unit is old (yes it is) and has a leak - just a coincidence that it happened after the furnace installation.

Bottom line, before he installed a new furnace, the air conditioner worked just fine. After the installation, it no longer worked. My intention is to file a small claims suit to have the air conditioner replaced. I doubt I would get a brand new air conditioner since the existing one is 30 years old.

Any advice?

Just because the two situations coincided doesn't necessarily mean that they are related, and that the installation of the furnace caused the breakdown of the A/C. The A/C was 30 years old, and presumably you hadn't even used it since last year when the temperatures were higher. Who's to say that age didn't finally take a toll on the A/C unit, or that something deteriorated on it between its last use and now?

Bottom line, unless you can definitively prove cause and effect, you aren't getting the furnace installation people to pay for another A/C unit. Even if it were possible, the best you could hope for would be the depreciated value of the A/C unit you have - and considering that the useful life of a central air conditioning unit is 15 years, you've already gotten twice its life out of it.

 

[OHRoadwarrior]

Generally speaking, the cost to potentially prove anything nefarious happened is more than a 30 year old unit is worth. Simply upgrading the unit to a new efficient one, would pay for itself. Google "air conditioning upgrade pay for itself" for more information.