Alliance Comfort Services

AC installation in Raleigh, NC

Replacing a system is the largest decision most homeowners make about a house short of the roof. Here is what AC installation in Raleigh, NC actually involves, what moves the price, and what happens after you call. A licensed North Carolina contractor answers the phone.

Call (919) 510-1472
A new Amana condenser installed on a concrete pad beside a cedar shingle house, the EnergyGuide label still on the cabinet and the electrical whip run neatly into the disconnect.

What a new system costs, honestly

You have probably already seen a number. Most of those ranges are wide enough that the low end and the high end describe different projects.

Four things set the price of an installation, and every one of them is specific to the address.

System size

Correct size comes from a load calculation, a Manual J, which accounts for square footage, insulation, window area and orientation, and how tight the house is.

Sizing off square footage alone is how a home ends up oversized: it cools quickly, never runs long enough to pull moisture out of the air, and short-cycles toward an early compressor failure. In a Triangle summer, an oversized system feels cold and clammy at once.

The ductwork you already have
New equipment inherits every defect in the duct system it connects to. Undersized trunk lines, inadequate returns, and leaks into a crawlspace all cap what a new unit can do, and finding that out afterward is expensive.
Electrical
Older panels do not always have the capacity or the breaker space for modern equipment, and a heat pump with auxiliary strip heat asks more of a panel than a straight air conditioner did.
The equipment tier you choose
Single stage, two stage, or variable speed. Higher efficiency or standard. Longer parts and labor coverage or the base term. That choice alone moves the total by a wide margin, and it is yours to make once the first three are known.

A price given before anyone has been inside the house is a guess dressed up as an answer. We would rather look at the system, measure what is there, write down a real number, and stand behind it. Financing is available, and we will go through it on the call.

The number comes after somebody has looked at the house. That visit is the call.

Call (919) 510-1472Or request a quote

Repair it, or replace it

Age alone does not decide this. An older system that has never given trouble is not a replacement candidate, and a newer one with an expensive failure sometimes is. Four things decide it, and they are worth working through in order before anybody quotes you equipment.

Four criteria for deciding between repairing and replacing an air conditioner
What decides itPoints to a repairPoints to a replacement
Which part failedA capacitor or a contactor, at almost any age.The compressor. That one repair starts to approach the cost of the equipment it would be going into, and everything else in that system is exactly as old.
What refrigerant it runsA current refrigerant, with the system holding its charge.R-22, which is no longer produced. Servicing it has become costly and will not get cheaper, so an R-22 system with a leak usually answers this by itself.
Whether the fault returnsA first failure, or the first in several years.The same fault back a second or third time. That is the rest of the system reporting its condition, and paying again buys one more summer at a time.
What a new system would fixNothing the current one does not already do. Repair it.A size that was wrong on day one, a room that has never been comfortable, an efficiency gap you pay for every month.

When three of the four point the same way, replacement is the honest answer, and we will say so just as plainly when they do not. If this is a repair, start at AC repair in Raleigh.

Two Raleigh housing stocks, two different jobs

Raleigh is not one installation market. Which half your house belongs to changes the work more than the name on the equipment does.

Inside the beltline, the houses are older than central air. Ductwork was retrofitted into crawlspaces and attics that were never designed to carry it, so the constraints are physical: trunk lines too small for what a modern blower wants to move, returns undersized because there was nowhere left to put one, runs squeezed through joist bays. On these homes the duct assessment is not an add-on to the installation, it is part of the installation. Skipping it is the most reliable way to spend serious money and still have a room that never gets comfortable.

North Raleigh and the newer subdivisions have the opposite situation. The ductwork is usually adequate. The equipment is what has aged out: builder-grade systems that went in with the house, frequently sized by rule of thumb rather than by calculation, now old enough that the compressor is on borrowed time. That is a cleaner installation, and it is also the one chance to correct a size that was wrong on the day the house was finished.

In Raleigh, the new AC is usually a heat pump

Roughly four in ten North Carolina homes heat with a heat pump, one of the highest shares in the country, according to the EIA's 2020 residential energy survey. If your outdoor unit runs in both summer and winter you have one, which means replacing the air conditioner replaces the heating system at the same time.

That changes what you are comparing. Heating performance at low outdoor temperatures shows up on a January power bill and appears nowhere on a cooling efficiency rating, so a system chosen on its cooling number alone is chosen on half the evidence. Sizing matters more here, not less, because one piece of equipment has to satisfy two seasons.

If the system you have now is a heat pump and it is misbehaving rather than simply old, that is a different visit. Start at heat pump repair.

We install and service Carrier, Trane, Lennox, Goodman, Amana, Rheem, Bryant, American Standard, Daikin, Mitsubishi.

The person who quoted it is the person on the ladder

Alliance Comfort Services LLC is licensed in North Carolina, number L.34059, through the NC State Board of Examiners of Plumbing, Heating & Fire Sprinkler Contractors.

That license belongs to the person who does the work. On an installation this matters more than it does on a service call, because a replacement is one long day of decisions about your house made by whoever is standing in it, and the licensed owner is the one standing in it.

What happens after you call

  1. You reach a licensed contractor

    Not a dispatch queue, and not a callback form. The person who picks up is the person who will quote the job.

  2. Somebody looks at the actual house

    The existing equipment, the ductwork, the electrical panel, and the rooms that have never felt right. A quote written without that visit is a quote written about a different house.

  3. The load calculation, then a written scope

    The equipment named and the work spelled out, with the reasoning behind the size rather than just the number. You can hold that document next to anyone else you are talking to.

  4. Installation day

    The old system comes out, the matched indoor and outdoor components go in, the refrigerant charge is set by measurement rather than by feel, and the system is commissioned and tested before anyone leaves.

$59 System Tune-Up

New customers. If your current system is still running and the real question is how much time is left in it, this is a full inspection and an honest read on where it stands.

Call (919) 510-1472

Common questions

How long does an installation take?
A straightforward changeout onto sound ductwork is usually a single day. Duct modifications, electrical work, or a change of system type extend it. You will know the scope before anything starts.
Do I need a load calculation, or can you size it from the square footage?
You need the calculation. Square footage alone ignores insulation, window orientation, and how tight the envelope is, and the wrong size costs you comfort and humidity control for as long as the equipment lasts.
Can I finance a new system?
Yes, financing is available. What applies depends on the equipment and the situation, so we work it out on the call.
Do you install ductless mini-splits?
Yes. Often the right answer for an addition, a converted attic, a sunroom, or any room the ductwork will not reach.

What customers say

5.0 out of 5, from 25 reviews on Google

Read all 25 on Google

Planning a system replacement in Raleigh?

A licensed contractor answers 24/7. See everything we cover in Raleigh, or start at AC repair if the current system may still have life left in it.

Call (919) 510-1472
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