Air Conditioning Woes

We have 2 air conditioning units in this house: one cools the upstairs, one cools the downstairs. The one upstairs is slowly dying, and we are forced to spend money either way. Man, I hate that! We have 9 year-old Goodman units, which are the cheapest contractor grade units available. If you get ten years out of them, you are lucky, we hear. Neighbors up and down the street have not been getting but 7-8 years out of them. So we're faced with replacing a $400 motor in a 9-year-old unit to maybe get one more year out of it at best vs. putting in a new, very efficient unit for $7400. Either way, I'm in pocket shock.

The kids have been sleeping in the guest room downstairs for a week now, because by the time the sun goes down at 9 PM, it is just so hot up there that it's miserable.

The A/C guys are coming out tomorrow to run 3 new return-air ducts for the downstairs unit, and fix or replace the upstairs unit. I'll be glad to see what a difference more return air makes. I envision it like a car's accelerator w/ a tennis ball under it: the car's motor could go up to 80 mph, but the tennis ball (lack of return air) is keeping it from going above 30 mph. And it's only a matter of time until that unit dies, too. Then we're faced with a huge difference in energy-efficiency between what we have and what we can put in. We've heard about utility bills being cut in half, since the majority of the bill is running the A/C units anyway.

I guess we've probably decided to put in the new unit upstairs, but it hurts our feelings to have to spend that much! No one relishes putting that much money into such a necessary purchase. But it still bites when you have to do it.