Buying A Home
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Buying with no central air and installing later

DH and I found a house that we love. Its heating system is "Forced air, Gas" and it does not have central air. Where we live, it gets hot in the summer and even though I would be okay with a window unit for awhile, DH has said that the house needs to have central air or it is a deal breaker for him.

So, my understanding is that since it has forced air heating, there is all ready duct work in place and it will be considerably cheaper to install central air than if it did not have the duct work. (Like, I think they basically just hook the machine up outside..?)

Does anyone have any experience with this? Is it worth it to install central air or will it be more of a hassle than it's worth? Any ball park figures? Can we have a central air installation person come over and look at it before we put in an offer? Can the inspector give us some kind of idea on the price? Does the fact that the heating is "gas" and not electric matter at all?

We were going to wait until June to seriously buy a house and we had just started casually looking to see neighborhoods, house styles, etc that we wanted and this place kind of fell into our lap. It is MUCH cheaper than we were looking to spend so dropping 2k$ on a central air install isn't a huge concern, if that's all it will cost. But, while we both love this house, we aren't afraid to walk away. We're still early in the process.

 

TIA.

Re: Buying with no central air and installing later

  • Not an expert but it shouldn't be that big of a hassle. I would call around and you might be able to get some rough estimates over the phone.  Also they may be able to send someone out to provide an estimate as well once they can get into the house.  We had a contractor come look at a foundation problem before we would bid on a house (we didn't bid because the quote was 2x the asking price of the house). 

    Have you gone to see the house in person? Honestly looking at them online is completely different than in person.  If you go and still love it, then I think I would call an HVAC company to get a price quote.  I would not wait for inspection to see what the inspector would guess.  Arm yourself with as much info as you can ahead of time.  Also, are you wanting to close in June or start looking in June? If its the first, I'd get looking.  We had a confirmed offer to buy at the end of April last year and closed June 3rd.... First mortgage payment due Aug 1.  

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  • I don't think it would be that expensive either if the ducts are in place already.

    They also have these individual units that can be put in each room.  They are small and go on the wall.  Pricing depends on how many units you want in each room.  My coworker just did it and paid 3k.

  • I didn't know if an HVAC person would be allowed in the house to give an estimate. But if they can't get in to look around, then I don't think we'll bid because I am just too afraid it would look like it could cost 1,000$ and end up being 20,000$ and they have to rip out the ceiling and some walls because they didn't get inside to look properly.

    Our plan was to start seriously looking at houses and make an offer in June. But since this place is so cheap, we won't need to save as much money so we could make an offer on this place if the HVAC thing works out. (It's 35% cheaper than the low end of what we were planning to spend.)

    We are going to look at it in person this evening. I'm trying not to get too excited because I know this can be a loooong process.

  • imagelivelaughlove717:

    I don't think it would be that expensive either if the ducts are in place already.

    They also have these individual units that can be put in each room.  They are small and go on the wall.  Pricing depends on how many units you want in each room.  My coworker just did it and paid 3k.

     

    Individual central air units? Do you know that they're called? Sorry, I know almost nothing about it and need to do some research lol.

  • Get someone in there to give you a bid. We saw something like that and thought no biggie until we found out nothing was to code and was all poorly done DIYO.
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  • If you're working with an agent, they probably know a contractor who could come out and give you a ballpark figure. We considered it for one house and even though it had duct work in place it was still going to be over $10K. A lot depends on the age of the house.
  • imagelivelaughlove717:

     

    Awesome, thank you.

     

    Thanks for the responses, ladies!

  • Yes we have one of these and love it. After rebates and tax credits, we paid about $1800 for one. However, our house has no duct work. If you already have the duct work, I would have central air installed over a ductless a/c. 
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  • We bought a house without central air and were planning on installing it but now we don't see the point. We get hot summers here and we got by just fine with window units and ceiling fans last year. The window units that the previous owners bought are really nice and you only need one per floor to keep the whole house cool. It's great.
  • We did this when we bought an older home (1920s).  We live in a hcol area and for both the central air and a heat pump it was around 6K.  I am so happy we did it though.  It makes the house more comfortable.  I say if you love that house then go for it.

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  • Dunno if you're planning to make it your forever-home, but installing central A/C will probably lure in a lot of people who also consider it a dealbreaker when it comes time to sell, even if that's so far in the future that it will need an overhaul anyway.
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  • Installing A/C if you already have ducting shouldn't be a big deal.  Talk with your agent, because I don't see any reason you couldn't put a provision in your offer that you get a quote on installing A/C.  If the A/C installer sees issues that may make it cost more than it might otherwise, it may also give you a little more negotiating room.

    Our house had A/C put in not long before we bought it and it didn't have duct work.  It was installed in the attic and ducts run down from there - duct work for the first floor just went through closets.  I think $5-10k is probably a reasonable guestimate, but you should try to get a true quote. 

  • We bought a new construction home that has forced air heat (gas), but decided for the builder to not install a/c because the mark up was ridiculous.  We had it pre-wired for a/c though, so installation after the fact was a breeze.  The price of the unit itself will also depend on your square footage, the # and size of windows and what direction they face (obviously a lot of south and west facing windows will mean the unit is running more in the afternoon/evening).  For our 1,800sf home, the unit we needed ran about $4,000, including installation.
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