If you've been told that the home warranty will cover the furnace and air conditioner, that's only partly true. Home warranties have exclusions that can cost hundreds on repairs and over a thousand on replacement. Even worse, it can be in the home warranty contractor's interest to have your coverage denied completely. Discovering issues with your HVAC equipment prior to purchase is a safer bet than trying to have a warranty company fix it later.

When you consider that a starter home in these parts sells for a cool half million, paying $180 to have a set of trained eyes look at the HVAC equipment prior to purchase is a small price to pay.

Furnaces

During a furnace inspection I'll look for obvious signs of imminent failure. Special attention will be given to the heat exchanger. Most if not all parts on a typical furnace are replaceable. But once the heat exchanger goes on an older furnace you often end up replacing the entire thing. Most home sellers that have cracked heat exchangers don't know it. When a heat exchanger first cracks it's usually without symptom. Most home inspectors have little to no ability to check a heat exchanger.

If you can be there during the inspection then I can show you some basics like how to use the thermostat, where the fuses are, etc.

Air Conditioners

Just like a furnace inspection, I'll look for obvious problems and dig for the not so obvious. Perhaps the most important thing I'll check is the refrigerant charge. There is a common misconception that air conditioners need to have refrigerant (often called Freon) added to them every so often. Air conditioners are sealed systems that should not need refrigerant added on a regular basis. If the system you're about to buy is low on refrigerant it most likely has a leak. That's something you should know in advance. Some leaks can be expensive to repair.

It's important to note that during cold weather it ranges from difficult to impossible to accurately check an air conditioner's refrigerant charge.

Ducts

Most home buyers don't opt to have me inspect the ducts. Unlike a furnace or air conditioner, a simple visual inspection is often all that's needed to know if the ducts are operable. (Operable is a far cry from optimal, but that's another issue entirely.) A simple visual check is right up the home inspector's alley. It's a good idea to ask the home inspector specifically about duct inspection before the home is inspected. I can of course inspect the ducts if you'd like.

Performance Analysis

Your HVAC system is comprised of individual components, many of which are mentioned above. Any one of those components can work just fine while the system as a whole may not. Total system performance is a product of equipment operation, equipment size, air distribution via properly (or not) designed ducts, the building's thermal envelope (insulation, windows, etc.), personal perception, etc. As such it is important to understand that when a contractor tells you that the furnace or air conditioner is running well it could still be the case that the system overall is performing poorly.

The most complete way for a contractor to assess an HVAC system is to do a performance analysis. That can include a Manual J heat load calculation. A heat load calculation will take into account the windows, insulation, heat loads, etc to determine how much heating and cooling the house and/or each individual room needs. Then with an airflow hood and thermometer the actual output of the system can be measured and compared to what the calculation says. That data can then be combined with a mechanical inspection of the equipment to give us a performance analysis. The performance analysis will tell us the performance of the current system, what the performance needs to be and how to get there.

In most situations a performance analysis as described above is not really needed. Contractors use a mix of user experience, mechanical inspection and instinct to come up with an assessment of how the system performs. Such educated guesses get us by most of the time. But an HVAC contractor can't truly know how the HVAC equipment performs as a system unless he's done a performance analysis.

Pricing

An individual inspection of a residential heater or air conditioner is $150. Each additional heater or air conditioner inspected at the same time will cost between $30 and $60 additional. If access is difficult or if there are unusual circumstances then the cost may be higher.

Duct inspection is quoted on a case by case basis.

A performance analysis is also quoted on a case by case basis. Each customer's goal in analyzing their home's HVAC is different, so the amount of work involved will be different.

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