the Price of Heating Replacement

The service included removal and disposal of an old, dead heating unit and replacement with a newer high-efficiency model. The price was inclusive of all labor and the heater. We also opted have the ducts cleaned while the unit was being replaced as it was offered at no extra charge. The service was performed at a residential address.

The company is a full-service HVAC company that does installations, design and consulting work for new construction, repair, and general maintenance on a variety of heating and cooling systems including forced-air cooling and radiant floor heating. Prices vary depending on the size and complexity of the job and may be priced as a package for standard services like heater replacement (as we received) or duct cleaning, or by the hour for things like contracted installations on existing structures.

I'm pretty happy with how things turned out. We tried turning the heat on during the first really cold night of the year and found that the heater had died. We called the guys we usually use to for our annual duct cleanings, and they came out to check on the unit.

They pulled out the burnt-out bits from our rather old (original to the house, which was built in the '70s) heater (the heating coil and the electrical bit that drove and regulated it (pretty much everything but the fan and the box that covered the heater)) and said that not only would it be a couple weeks to get the parts (we called around with the part numbers to confirm, and they were being accurate), it would actually be more expensive to replace those parts than to have a new unit installed.

The job was scheduled for a couple weeks hence when we had a day off work, and was done quickly and efficiently. The new unit looks like it was there all along and worked marvelously through the cold nights of the past winter.

Fortunately in Phoenix we don't really have to have heat. Even in the winter it's more of a nicety than a necessity. Temperatures occasionally drop into the 30s at night at the coldest part of Phoenix's winter, so it's not like we'd freeze to death. We do have blankets, after all.

Many homes here don't even have heaters, outside the portable space heater kind, so you could survive without one.

That said, getting a new one is a pretty painless procedure, except for the price. Seeing as it's not a complicated install like a full furnace (as used by those in the northwest) would be, just about any company can handle it reasonably well. Call around and hunt for the best price, and be sure to ask if the company is insured for damage the workers might cause to your house (a lot of HVAC units are on roofs around here and as such roofing tiles can be damaged if workers aren't careful).