Will cool air cost more in 2006?

In midsummer, a householder's fancy turns to keeping cool. Some renters and owners rely on a combination of whole-house attic fans and oscillating table-top or window-mounted models. Others perform the annual rite of installing clunky window-mounted air conditioners.

In much of the country central air-conditioning has become standard in new homes. Fully 99 percent of new homes built in the South today come equipped, according to the Air- Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute (ARI). Overall, nearly 60 million US households had central air in 2001, according to the US Energy Information Agency.

Nationally, shipments of central air systems have nearly doubled since 1992, the last time the government nudged up efficiency requirements in the form of minimum SEER rating (for Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio), the measurement of the unit's cooling and energy efficiency. The increase then was from eight to 10.

Efficiency standards for systems sold in the US are set to change again Jan. 1, 2006, with a boost to a SEER 13 minimum for all units sold in the United States. That leaves current system owners - most of whom are oblivious to SEER, according to a recent industry survey - with a new factor to consider in a repair- or-replace calculation.

It's not a simple one, if you listen to all of the industry's voices. Waiting for next year's models is either a reasonable plan, given the resulting energy savings over time and the industry's history of bringing prices to heel. Or it's a formula for incurring huge upfront expenses - including the cost of hiring building contractors - that will be difficult to recoup.

About 8 million central-air systems are sold each year, with some 70 percent of those sales in replacement units. Replacement becomes an issue sometime after a decade of use.

The timing of unit replacement and its impact on price isn't something that most owners think about.

"Most consumers don't understand that there are going to be cost differences, so they only react when something breaks," says Karl Zellmer, vice president of air-conditioner sales for Emerson Climate Technology. "If it breaks now they have options down to 10 SEER, which is the minimum, and if it breaks a year from now it's going to be 13 SEER, and it's going to be a higher cost."

One contributor to the cost hike: unit size. This is not an area of consumer technology in which modern translates to slim. New units can take up as much as 40 percent more room. More refrigerant requires more coils, inside and out, so modifications could be required throughout a home. Outside, poured concrete slabs prepared for current home models might be inadequate for post-2006 units.

"If the equipment is more than 10 years old and [an owner] is starting to have difficulties with it, they might want to look into replacing it this year, even if it hasn't failed yet," says Glenn Hourahan, vice president for technology at Air Conditioning Contractors of America.

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