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What we can tell you about air conditioning in your metro

Three published measurements and one industry convention. Enter how old your system is and we will tell you where that sits against the usual parts-warranty terms — and nothing else, because nothing else would be honest.

This tool will not tell you when to replace your system. It has not seen it.

How old is your system?

If you know roughly when it was installed, enter the age in years. This is the only thing you tell us, it stays in your browser, and nothing is stored or sent anywhere.

Nothing entered

A whole number. Leave it blank if you are not sure.

Parts warranty, common industry terms

Manufacturers commonly offer a 10-year parts warranty if the unit was registered shortly after installation, and 5 years if it was not.

Enter an age above and this becomes a statement about the number you entered. Until then, here is the convention itself.

That is a common pattern across the industry, not a fact about your unit. Registration deadlines, what counts as a covered part, whether labour is included, and whether any of it transfers to a new owner all vary by manufacturer and by model. Your own paperwork, or the model and serial number on the outdoor unit, is the only thing that settles it.

This part needs JavaScript, because it is arithmetic on something you type. Everything else on this page is already in the page — both metros' cooling load, the electricity rate, the tax-credit position and the warranty terms are all above and below, whether scripts run or not.

How hard a typical year works a system here

Cooling degree days measure how much cooling a period demanded — not how hot it felt, and not what anything cost. Both metros are shown, from the 30-year normal at one named weather station near each city.

Cooling demand in a typical year, Austin

3,289.8 cooling degree days, base 65°F

This is NOAA's 1991-2020 normal for AUSTIN-CAMP MABRY (USW00013958), 3.8 miles from our reference point for Austin, built on 29-30 years of record. It describes a typical year, not this one — the 30-year period it covers ended in 2020. The date on the badge above is newer than that because the same station also reports month by month, and its newest complete month is August 2026; that is what keeps this feed current, and it is not the figure shown here.

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Data through Updated: Source: NOAA NCEI U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020 (station CSV) and Global Summary of the Month

Cooling demand in a typical year, San Antonio

3,474 cooling degree days, base 65°F

This is NOAA's 1991-2020 normal for SAN ANTONIO STINSON MUNI AP (USW00012970), 6 miles from our reference point for San Antonio, built on 19-20 years of record. It describes a typical year, not this one — the 30-year period it covers ended in 2020. The date on the badge above is newer than that because the same station also reports month by month, and its newest complete month is August 2026; that is what keeps this feed current, and it is not the figure shown here.

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Data through Updated: Source: NOAA NCEI U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020 (station CSV) and Global Summary of the Month

What electricity costs in Texas

The published statewide residential rate. We show the rate and stop there: turning it into a monthly bill, a running cost or a payback period needs this home's actual consumption, which we do not have and will not assume.

Average residential electricity price, Texas

13.88¢ per kWh

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Data through Updated: Source: EIA Electricity Data (Texas, residential)

Full Texas electricity price series, sources and limitations →

The federal tax credit

The federal 25C credit for HVAC equipment expired on December 31, 2025

The Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit under Internal Revenue Code section 25C — the credit homeowners claimed for qualifying heat pumps, air conditioners and furnaces — was ended by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The IRS states the test plainly: the credit “will not be allowed for any property placed in service after December 31, 2025.” Placed in service, not purchased — so equipment bought before July 4, 2025 but not placed in service until after the cutoff does not qualify. There is no grandfather provision. If a quote or an installer’s page still prices the credit in, that is a reason to ask, not a reason to hurry. One qualification the IRS attaches to this guidance itself: these FAQs are not published in the Internal Revenue Bulletin, so the IRS will not rely on them to resolve a case — though a taxpayer who relies on them reasonably and in good faith is protected from accuracy-related penalties.

Source: IRS Fact Sheet 2025-05, Q1 — FAQs on the OBBB modification of sections 25C, 25D, 25E, 30C, 30D, 45L, 45W and 179DConfirmed

What this tool cannot see

  • Whether your system has already been replaced. A replacement done without a permit leaves no record anywhere we can read. If your unit was swapped five years ago and nobody filed for it, every figure on this page still describes the metro correctly and says nothing about your house.
  • The age of your equipment. We do not know it and cannot look it up. Travis Central Appraisal District's improvement export carries no street address at all, so there is nothing to look your house up by, and Bexar publishes no bulk export. The export does record that a property has an HVAC system, but whether the year on that record is the equipment's or the building's has never been established, and we will not build on a field whose meaning we have not checked. So the age on this page is the number you typed, labelled as the number you typed.
  • Its condition, its size, or whether it is right for your house. Sizing is an engineering calculation from the building's envelope, its ductwork and its orientation. We have none of that, and a number produced without it would be worse than no number.
  • When to replace it. We are not going to guess. Age alone does not decide it — a well-maintained fifteen-year-old system can outlast a neglected eight-year-old one, and the question turns on condition, repair history and what a specific failure would cost. A tool that turned your age into a replacement date would be selling something, not measuring anything.

Where these numbers come from