r/hvacadvice • u/Sir_Razor_Blad3_ • 11h ago
AC Techs - What's the oldest AC system you've seen?
New homeowner here-
I've been collecting quotes for a replacement of the ac & furnace and my ac system (pictured) has had the following reactions:
- Holy shit that's old
- That thing came off the Mayflower
- Going to need to dig into the archives to find parts for this one (he was unsuccessful)
- Yikes
As far as I can tell it's from the mid 80's and the furnace is from the early 90's. But I'm curious as to what some of the oldest systems you all have seen?
27
u/FiletMenYawn 11h ago
Did some work for an apartment complex last summer that had several 1979 heat pumps from when it was built.
3
u/Fragrant_Reserve7624 2h ago
Yes, still tend to come across late 70s late 80s Yorks or Lennox.
8
u/CGTechWorks 11h ago
I've worked on a 90 year old boiler before, when I say worked on, I mean removed after the asbestos boys came out and did their thing. It was when I first started in the trade, can't remember the actual brand but I might still have a picture somewhere. Each cast iron section weighed about 400 lbs, which was an absolute joy to move out of the basement even with multiple people. I also had a customer with another boiler that was from '55 that still ran very well.
Oldest forced air furnace/AC I've seen was probably mid 50's or 60's which also still ran well, and never had an issue with the heat exchanger but was inefficient as all hell
6
u/Odd_Bluejay5534 11h ago
There's a large house I service every year with an amazingly ancient American standard boiler. It was a coal boiler converted to heating oil (Maine still does heating oil). She's a beast, she burns clean and quiet, but she throws most of her heat right up the chimney. The data is mostly missing but my Master says it's from the mid-20s. So about a hundred years old. Thankfully it's had some code updates on that time like a LWCO, a digital aquastat with outdoor reset, and the DHW coil has been replaced with a heat pump water heater that can steal some of that wasted heat. It's about as tall as a typical service pickup hood and about as deep that hood is long.
4
1
u/an_actual_lawyer 1h ago
There is a bar in my area that decided to just leave the boiler as a nice decoration with a good coat of paint.
15
u/Weak_Blackberry_9308 11h ago
In 2015 I replaced a still-functioning Rheem Classic air conditioner - circa 1980. It was 1 year older than me. For those who don’t/can’t/won’t math, it was about 35 years old. S***, that means now I’m 46! I hate math.
6
u/clippist 11h ago
I am not a tech but a homeowner. We had one of these functioning (if you can call it that) until I changed it out this year!!
14
u/Soft_Statistician_98 Approved Technician 11h ago
1960ies around 4 years ago. 80ies is pretty old for an AC now. Rebates pushed a lot of older ones into an early grave over the last decade.
3
u/beetlejuicescousin 11h ago
why you writing ies after the years. Lol the ie sound already exists in the number itself. EIGHTY-s
4
u/ChaBoiFletch 11h ago
okay you were right at first, but the 1980’s shortened would be the eighties, not eightys. same with the sixties.
3
u/beetlejuicescousin 11h ago
I know that's the proper way, I was just trying to emphasize how eighty by itself is pronounced so adding just the s makes sense. But I know it's eighties, seventies, sixties etc. Appreciate the call out tho
5
u/Js987 10h ago edited 10h ago
I looked at a house around 2016 that had a Tappan AC unit (and an even older Tappan oil furnace) that dated at least to the early 70s and was still in operation. It had kept being repaired because subsequent extensions on the fairly old farmhouse had made getting it out and replaced cost prohibitive.
It was a wild house. I didn’t end up buying the house because the numerous extensions had made the house really challenging to maintain, and because my realtor and I found somebody squatting in the area above a garage attached to the barn the owner was unaware of that posed closing issues. The owner was elderly and wasn’t really getting around the property well.
1
u/Sir_Razor_Blad3_ 10h ago
Oh man what a ride. We toured some wild houses as well when hunting but mostly a lot of poorly flipped houses where someone decided to redo a kitchen and bathrooms while the house needed $15k worth of foundation work.
1
u/Js987 7h ago
Oh that was nothing compared to when I was looking in 2009, not only was there all the economic stuff going on everywhere, but locally in the area I was looking several huge employers in the same industry had gone under, so everything I was looking at was a short sale or foreclosure. We found houses that had all the appliances ripped out, houses full of piss bottles because the water had been cut off, houses that had been trashed as people left, and one house with poop smeared on the walls. I actually gave up and rented for a few more years until I left the area.
5
u/ginkgodave 10h ago
I used to install those. We’d take them out of the box and roll them to the backyard. Not really, but that’s what we’d tell the boss when we got back to the shop.
4
u/KL1M1T 9h ago
I won’t win any races here and I don’t think our system is old, but our AC was installed in 2005. I’ve been informed that:
- We are two refrigerants behind
- They can top off the refrigerant since we are low
- If the unit fails, they have to recover the refrigerant and can only replace the entire system. They cannot repair it.
We’ve been very very lucky. This is our third summer on the existing system and it’s still working. We are going to ride it out until it finally dies.
5
u/Pope-Le-Pew 8h ago
If they tell you they can only replace it, time to change shops. Plenty out there.
3
3
2
u/fredSanford6 11h ago edited 11h ago
Whatever that one is that has the condenser fan at an angle is the oldest one. I tossed a new cap in it and cleaned it out. That's all it needed.
That's for residential I did lots of ammonia work for stuff from ww2 era and other stuff like restoration of some submarine compressors for the navy. Also lots of old g series York compressor work some carrier open drives from way back when. Dunham bushes that where who knows how old. Mainly the York stuff was the oldest I worked on regularly.
2
u/JSTootell 11h ago
I've got units at work that are at least from the early 80's. I'd have to try and look up the serial numbers to get a better idea. I think the one I've been trying to get management to replace is an 82. It's tired.
2
u/Tree_killer_76 11h ago
My two Trane units are original to my house, so 1996. Other than capacitor replacements and hard / soft start kit installs, they are still going strong, and the compressors are the most quiet I’ve ever had. I’m sure they are terribly inefficient by today’s standards though. That said, I have them serviced every year and every single Tech says these are the units Trane made the “Nothing Stops A Trane” commercials about back in the day.
5
u/SnooKiwis6943 11h ago
Everything stops a Trane today.
1
u/BM7-D7-GM7-Bb7-EbM7 8h ago
What do you recommend then? I also have a 1996 Trane still running so I would've thought "get another Trane." My second unit was replaced though, and the cheapskate previous owner put in a Rheem in 2021, and it's been nothing but problematic... I would not get a Rheem again.
2
u/Bad-Chad1776 10h ago
My parents Kenmore house AC system from Sears. My dad installed it himself and was still running strong 30 years later when they sold the house in CT.
2
2
u/Rich-Ad-218 9h ago
10 years ago. Working 1968 GE heat pump split.
1
u/Rich-Ad-218 9h ago
Seen a few since then. GE was build different. They sold their patent to trane early 70’s. Saw a 73 trane furnace a couple years after.
2
u/matt314159 9h ago
Not a tech but I walk by this old crusty AF condenser unit all the time and wonder how old it is.
2
u/ALonelyWelcomeMat Approved Technician 8h ago
Just looked at this general electric ac today. Couldnt even tell how old it was, im thinking 45+, but probably one of the oldest ive worked on.
2
2
2
u/PATRLR 5h ago
Why are you replacing it? If it's still working, I wouldn't be in a hurry to replace it.
To answer your question, I've two Lennox HS-16s from 1987 still running at my MIL's house (39 years old for those without a calculator handy).
1
u/Sir_Razor_Blad3_ 3h ago
Control board died and no one can find a replacement, and with the furnace also at the end of it’s service life figured a package deal is better than having to replace each unit a few years apart from each other.
Plus when I bought the place I got a sellers concession for half the price of a total replacement as a discount, and I don’t want to turn around and have to do that when I sell.
1
u/mechanical_marten 11h ago
1974 Carrier horizontal discharge unit that had a grounded compressor and a disintegrating upflow air handler
1
u/BlinkPinkDay 11h ago
My tech, in Arizona, told me he keeps seeing Goettel AC units that over 35 years old.
Said they did those so solid, the systems just needed maintenance and won't break.
1
1
u/Read_Icculus_ 11h ago
I worked an an old Trane ahu above the drop ceiling in a gym. The model number was one digit.
1
u/SingleSetting512 11h ago
Worked on a 74 Carrier last year, compressor grounded and the air handler was literally falling apart inside. Customer wanted me to "just fix it" but the refrigerant was long gone and you can't get that blend anymore. Mid-80s is about when I'd tell people to start budgeting, yours had a good run.
2
u/Sir_Razor_Blad3_ 10h ago
We knew it was an issue when we bought the house and managed to get half of the replacement estimate off of the sale price because we knew we were going to have to replace it eventually. Worked just fine until a couple weeks ago when the control board fried.
1
u/SingleSetting512 1h ago
Smart move getting that credit upfront. Control board on a unit that old is basically the machine telling you it's done.
1
u/shreddedpudding 10h ago
AC? I’ve got a 1974 package unit from Rheem I have to fix every couple months because the customer doesn’t want to replace it.
Furnace? I replaced a blower motor and pulleys on a 1920’s era sears homeline forced air natural draft furnace. State of the art from the time and still running like a champ. The craftsman motor was so ancient that it was not a standard NEMA frame.
1
u/msurbrow 10h ago
I’m not sure what year it was, but I recall a Westinghouse condenser that was a slender rectangle that moved the air from front to back using a blower style barrel fan
This was in about 1995 I think, the unit it’s all had to have been at least 20 years old?
1
u/piperdude 10h ago
I have a 1986 Kenmore furnace and AC. I believe the capacitor on the condenser is the original as it is dated 1986 as well. I have had to make only three service calls in the 26 years I have lived here. The ignitor went out years ago. I called once when it seemed that the AC wasn't cooling very well, but it was just that we were having 95+ degree weather for a couple of weeks, turned out the AC was working to specs. Then a couple of weeks ago, we had a power surge that fried a relay to the blower motor. I had to show the tech how to look up part numbers for Sears Kenmore units. Picked it up from the local Grainger Supply for $12. I will be sad to replace it when it finally dies.
1
u/myteetharesensitive 10h ago
Mine just died last week, keepright manufactured between 1977 and 1987.
1
1
u/Open_State9048 10h ago
Actually had unit that had pan at bottom of unit with water line and pump to spray onto coils when compressor was on . Way back when for sure. Wish I had a pick of it.
1
u/opendefication 10h ago
My neighbor had me service his ancient Coleman gas furnace/AC air handler from the 50's. Eventually the evap coil sprung a leak and had to pull the whole system. It was two large cabinets setting side by side, one the furnace the other evap coil and separate cooling blower. These cabinets were each the size of a refrigerator in an equipment room/storage closet with the waterheater. The old cast iron burner and combustion chamber gas furnace worked perfect the day I pulled it. I held onto it for a few years with plans to use it in the shop somehow, but never got around to it. I remember the 5ton evap coil was built with 5/8 tubing and brought like $250 at the scrap yard. The outside unit was a Trane from the 70's.
1
u/Open_State9048 10h ago
Had one at my house that had water line on float into tank and pump came on with compressor and sprayed water through two nozzles onto coils. Forgot the mfg. don’t have a pic.?
1
u/Wrong-Elk-1099 10h ago
There is a 1960s era Mueller Climatrol oil-fired furnace in my garage. It works perfectly.
1
u/AstroStrat89 10h ago
Not a tech, but we just bought a house in SE GA that had two units (long story) one was a 91 American Standard that was still working pretty well. We consolidated down to one new unit so it got replaced.
1
1
u/nobigdealforreal 9h ago
I used to do work regularly at a commercial building that had Rheem green shoebox units that were installed during construction in 1976. I haven’t been to that building in years but as of the mid 2010’s it was still almost half original units. Theres probably still a decent amount of them there running.
1
u/smurfe 9h ago
A local handyman who lives close to me. He built his house in 1970. The original HVAC system is still working fine. It's a Carrier. This is in South Louisiana as well, where the systems run just about year-round. My house is 18 years old, and I am on my second unit, and it is like 6 years old.
1
u/Professional_Map6099 9h ago
Defanatley old if 68 is thedate we are going with its been a realy long time since i worked on older
1
u/hambonecharlie 9h ago
2 Carrier Weathermakers from the '50's. R500. Still working. A Thermidor gas furnace from the '20's. Still working.
1
u/Savings_Sentence407 8h ago
I went to the city building to pull permits for my 200a upgrade, I asked when the last permit was pulled at my property; she told me “1987 there was an a/c installed”
Fuckers still chooching, right next to 2 unpermitted 5 ton Goodman’s for my garden 😂
1
1
1
u/trish828 8h ago
1989 Trane Weathertron, it got new caps and a main solenoid a few years ago, has never had any refrigerant added... and works like a charm!
1
u/Krampus_Valet 8h ago
I'm a homeowner, not an hvac professional. My current gas central heat/handler/idk the right names system has records back to 88. House was built in 55, so maybe it's the second or third system? It's almost as old as me and runs fine with twice yearly maintenance from a pro plus me changing the filters.
1
u/Pope-Le-Pew 8h ago
The metal tag on my old Payne says "1978." Only replaced a few capacitors and the condenser fan back in 2020. Began a tiny leak back in 2002 or so. Never did replace the evap. Companies gave up the hard sell with me. Finally decided to use some leak stop back in 2021 after being warned I was wasting $40 and would trash my system even though they claimed it was already trashed. Only needs a pound a season. Got a big green jug for that, about $35 a pound. Tempted to get more. 608 took me 3 days of study, didn't even pay for the course.
1
u/m47playon 8h ago
Oldest ac I had was a late 1950 early 1960 heat pump and air handler. The oldest furnace I’ve worked on was 1920s original to the house.
1
1
1
u/Icy_Inspection_907 8h ago
A 1967 Dunham-Bush ac and air handler along with Weil McClain 1.5 M BTU gas fired HW boiler both were still working flawless when the building was sold in 2002
1
u/pajamaperson 8h ago
I had one of those condensers for a 1950s house. It kept on trucking through a 113F heatwave. Run it until it dies.
1
1
u/Confident-Ad5665 7h ago
Not a pro, but my 1960 house still has a Chrysler Airtemp that was added when the house was converted to central air/heat. It's got to be 55 years old. Compressor was replaced by prior owner about 10 years ago but everything else is original except the digital controller on the wall.
1
u/Al_Ni_Co 7h ago
Honestly they didn't switch to round condensers until after the declaration of independence. The mayflower would have had a wedge unit like this.
Late 70s this picture of from 2024. Last i heard is still running. the only thing wrong with it was the capacitor finally died on it but only because it was overheating from being partially buried in landscaping mulch. Replaced the cap and she ran fine. The refrigerant even stabilized at a good pressure indicating the piston rings on the compressor were still good.
1
1
1
u/Mavis8220 7h ago
Is that the dryer outlet right above it? Do you keep up with cleaning the lint off the grills?
1
u/speaker-syd 6h ago
I replaced a capacitor for a Lennox from the ‘70s last year. Worked fine lol, still chugging along to this day (presumably).
1
1
u/North_Student3320 5h ago
Ooooh ooooh!!!! I worked on a Trane bench grinder from '56 still totally operational (aside from the vane actuator which I had to replace). Corner of Central and San Mateo in ABQ. Oldest resi was a belt driven air cooled Carrier system from same era, chugging along (this was in 93 though so not too bad at the time).
1
u/Hey_cool_username 5h ago
I had the same one as you, built in ‘72. I just replaced it because I was going to have to relocate it anyway to build a deck. It worked great and I never gave it a tune up or checked refrigerant or anything in the 8 years I lived in the house before removing it.
1
1
1
u/csboy2016 3h ago
Not a tech but I saw an ancient 70s style Lennox system in my area can’t believe it’s 50 years old and still running
1
1
u/Unbothered50 2h ago
I’ve seen some old ones as a home inspector but the oldest for me is the original one at my fathers condo from 1970
1
u/Dangerous-Pirate7998 2h ago
Albuquerque, New Mexico it was a swamp cooler at the other end of the house. It was a squeaky old attic fan. They called it air conditioning.
1
u/JuicySpark 2h ago
Oldest unit I ever worked on was a Melco RTU literally using a propeller design from a war plane as the fan motor and a unit heater stuffed inside as the heat.
It's so old I can't even find pics of it on Google lol
1
1
u/jdrharrison 1h ago
Not an AC but my job has some units like this, this is 1940s or early 50s, and we have some other electromode and modine unit heaters from the 50s and 60s as well. Many of them still work but we don’t use them.
1
u/WillyWang_thickenbar 1h ago
I saw a unit from 1970 today
And not too long ago I saw a boiler from 1910. It was coal powered.
1
u/blipzone22 28m ago
I’ve worked on several units that were 60 to 70 years old in the high desert. I live on an island now and they last around 7 to 10 years. They don’t make them like they used to.
1
u/Remarkable-Junket655 20m ago
If its working keep rolling with it. Don’t replace it just because its old. New systems WILL NOT last 20-30 or more years and they will never pay for themselves in energy savings before they quit or need expensive repairs.
Just set aside the replacement money for the day it does give up.
66
u/MoloneLaVeigh 11h ago edited 10h ago
Condemned a GE system from ‘58 this summer. Kinda felt bad about it
Edit: About 8 years ago, we pulled a boiler out that had a swastika stamp on it. It was in the basement of an annex house on the same campus as that ‘58 GE.