What Should You Expect for Central Air Conditioner Prices?

Window mounted air conditioners will generally do a pretty good job of keeping a room or two in your house nice and cool, but they lack the whole house coverage which only central air conditioning can provide. With central a/c you'll be able to precisely tune the temperature of your home or store, and often you'll be able to provide a different temperature for each room in your home, with the press of a button. It's clear everyone would prefer to use centralized system but they're stymied by central air conditioner prices.

How much?

There are a number of factors you need to keep in mind when estimating central air conditioner prices. These factors include:

• The age of your property. Older properties are more expensive to install central air conditioning into for the simple fact they weren't constructed with the possibility of central a/c in mind.


• Your property's level of insulation. The better insulated your property the less powerful of a system you need. The more your property leaks cool air the more you'll need to spend on a central air conditioning system. Insulation levels are often, but not always, correlated with its age.


• Environmental conditions. Simply put the hotter your climate the more powerful of a central a/c system you'll need.

As you can see there are plenty of conditions in place which can vary central a/c prices substantially.

The Costs On Average

Despite variations in price there are a few estimates you can work with when pricing out your central air conditioning needs.

If you have a property that's about two thousand square feet you can expect to pay around $4,000 for your system. A smaller home will cost as little as half that, while larger systems can cost substantially more.

In addition to the base cost of the system itself you will also need to take into consideration installation costs which can double your cost. If your building already has the requisite ducts than you only need to pay for the system itself. If you need to install ducts expect to pay at least another $2,000 or more to have your central air installed. Most older buildings will NOT have these ducts in place while it's hit or miss whether a new property will have them.

A Wise Investment?

So is central air conditioning worth it, considering it can (worst case scenario) cost you over $10,000? If you have the money to comfortably spend on a full system then its added convenience and level of control makes it a great buy. If you don't have the cash on hand for central air then a couple window mounted conditioners will cost you significantly less and will work better than nothing.