AC replacement is the removal of an existing air conditioning system and the fitting of a new one in its place, as distinct from installing a system where none has been. A full residential replacement in Tampa Bay and Southwest Florida runs about $5,500 to $17,000 installed. TLS Air Conditioning gives you that number free, in your home.
Call 941-269-3433. The in-home estimate costs nothing, carries no obligation and produces a written price that does not move afterwards. Everything you have already spent on repairs with TLS in the last twelve months comes off the price of the new system.
Replace your air conditioner when the compressor has failed on a system past ten years, when a large refrigerant leak has opened up on an R-410A system, when the ductwork verdict says the equipment was never the limiting factor, or when repairs have become annual. Repair it when the fault is one component and the system is younger.
Thomas Hoerig makes that call at TLS. He reads the model and serial plate for the true age of the equipment, puts a manometer on the ductwork, checks the charge and the electrical draw, and gives you the verdict at the house — not after an hour of conversation and a folder of financing options.
Replace the system. A compressor is the pump that moves refrigerant through an air conditioner, and out of warranty it costs $2,500 to $5,500 to change on a Florida system. Spending that on eleven-year-old equipment buys you a new compressor bolted to a decade-old coil, contactor, blower and line set.
What decides it is the compressor price set against a replacement that resets the whole system’s clock and carries a fresh ten-year parts warranty. On a system under ten years old with intact parts coverage the arithmetic reverses, and repair usually wins — we check the warranty status on the manufacturer’s portal before quoting either way.
Replace the system when the leak is in the evaporator coil or the compressor body and the system runs R-410A. Refrigerant is not consumed, so a low charge means it escaped. A 3-ton system holds seven to ten pounds of R-410A, and R-410A production is scheduled downward every year until 2036.
A leak in a line set fitting or a Schrader core is a repair and should be quoted as one. A leak inside a coil on a twelve-year-old system is a different transaction, because you buy scarce refrigerant twice — once to fix it and again when the next pinhole opens in the same corroded coil. TLS locates the leak before recommending anything, because where it is decides which of those two conversations you are having.
Replace the system and correct the ducts together when measured static pressure sits well above the air handler’s rating. A new air conditioner fitted to ductwork that cannot move its air will short-cycle, freeze its coil and fail early, and the manufacturer’s warranty will not cover a failure caused by airflow.
This is the finding that most often changes a quote, and it is why TLS measures static pressure before quoting a replacement rather than after fitting one. The reading goes on your quote as a number you can check. What the measurement produces is a verdict on the existing ducts, covered further down this page.
Replace the system after two consecutive cooling seasons with a paid repair in each. Components on an air conditioner age together, so the capacitor that failed last August and the fan motor that failed this July are telling you the same thing about everything else still fitted.
The pattern matters more than the amounts. Two $400 repairs in two years on a fourteen-year-old system is a different signal from one $900 repair on a seven-year-old one, even though it has cost less. Courtney can pull your TLS service history over the phone, so the pattern is a record rather than a memory — and every dollar in it credits against a replacement.
Replace the system when cooling costs rise year on year with no change in how you live. An air conditioner loses efficiency gradually as coils foul, charge drifts and compressor valves wear, and a 2008-vintage 10 SEER unit in Pinellas Park now costs roughly $400 to $600 a year more to run than a current system.
Nothing about that system announces itself. It cools, it just costs more each summer to do it, and the running-cost gap eventually funds a meaningful part of the replacement. Bring twelve months of electricity statements to the estimate and we will work the gap out against your actual kilowatt-hours rather than a national average.
Replace the system before listing rather than after an inspection report. Under Florida Statute § 559.956 the manufacturer’s warranty transfers to your buyer automatically and free of charge, and the warrantor may not charge a transfer fee. A new system with transferable coverage is a stronger position at the negotiating table than a repair credit.
Buyers in Pinellas, Manatee and Lee counties ask the age of the air conditioner before almost anything else, because they know what running one costs here. A fifteen-year-old system becomes a line item in their offer whether or not it works on inspection day. Tell Courtney the listing date when you book and we will schedule the changeout around it.
The $5,000 rule multiplies the age of your air conditioner in years by the cost of the repair quoted, and says to replace when the result exceeds $5,000. It is a screening tool rather than an answer, and it systematically under-reads in Florida because it counts calendar years on equipment that runs far more hours here.
TLS works the rule with you at your own kitchen table, on paper, both ways — the repair price against the replacement price after your repair credit is deducted. It decides whether the replacement conversation is worth having at all, and on plenty of visits the answer is that it is not.
Calendar age is not what wears a compressor out; run hours are. At 3,928 cooling degree days a year against a US average of 1,633, a condenser in Pinellas Park banks them 2.4 times faster than identical equipment fitted somewhere mild. That multiplier is what the rule leaves out.
Work the same repair both ways and the rule flips.
An eight-year-old system with a $500 repair scores 8 × $500 = $4,000 under the standard rule, which says repair.
Adjust the age for Florida run hours and the same system scores closer to 19 × $500 = $9,500, which says replace.
What the arithmetic cannot see is which component failed. A six-year-old system with a failed capacitor is a repair whatever any multiplication says. Use the rule to decide whether the conversation is worth having, then decide it on the six situations above.
A full AC replacement in Tampa Bay and Southwest Florida costs about $5,500 to $17,000 installed, depending on size and efficiency. The commonest job, a 2.5 to 3 ton system on existing ductwork, runs $6,600 to $10,800 at standard efficiency. TLS gives you the exact figure free and in writing.
Courtney books the visit. A TLS employee — never a commission-only subcontractor — measures the house, reads the static pressure on your existing ductwork and prices the job in front of you, and you keep a written quote carrying the equipment model numbers, the scope and the total whether or not you buy anything.
A 2 ton replacement runs $5,500 to $8,800 at standard efficiency and a 5 ton runs $10,700 to $17,000. High-efficiency variable-speed equipment adds roughly 40% to each figure. Tonnage follows the cooling load of the house, which is confirmed by calculation rather than copied off the old unit.
West-coast Florida market, Pinellas down to Collier, reviewed August 2026. These are ranges, not quotes — your exact price is confirmed in writing after diagnosis and does not move after that.
| System size | Typical home | Standard efficiency 14.3–16 SEER2 | High efficiency 17–20+ SEER2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 ton | up to 1,200 sq ft | $5,500 – $8,800 | $8,400 – $12,000 |
| 2.5 – 3 ton | 1,300 – 1,800 sq ft | $6,600 – $10,800 | $9,300 – $16,000 |
| 3.5 – 4 ton | 1,900 – 2,400 sq ft | $8,500 – $13,600 | $11,500 – $17,500 |
| 5 ton | 2,500 – 3,000+ sq ft | $10,700 – $17,000 | $14,300 – $22,000 |
Equipment built for R-454B costs 15% to 30% more than the R-410A equivalent it replaces, which is most of the reason a 2026 replacement prices above what the same house paid in 2021. Labour and materials in this market have moved on top of that.
A replacement quote includes the outdoor condenser, the indoor air handler or coil, a new line set, a new condensate drain and float switch, a hurricane tie-down, the county mechanical permit, and removal of the old system. Ductwork correction, electrical panel work and drain re-routing are quoted separately when the house needs them.
| Item | Typical range |
|---|---|
| County mechanical permit | $100 – $395, included in the TLS quote |
| Electrical disconnect, whip or panel work | $395 – $895 |
| Duct sealing and minor duct repair at changeout | $500 – $2,000 |
| Partial or full duct replacement at changeout | $2,500 – $4,500 |
| Removal, refrigerant recovery and haul-away of the old system | Included |
| Surge protector fitted to the new system | $100 off installation, lifetime warranty on the protector |
Whatever the list says, the price you agree is the price you pay. Under our No Change Order Guarantee, if something was missed at design stage it is our cost and not yours — the material limitation being that it applies to the scope surveyed, so genuine additions you ask for afterwards are quoted afresh.
Yes. A TLS in-home estimate for a replacement system costs nothing and carries no obligation. A sales visit is our cost to bear, not yours. This is different from the $125 diagnostic fee on a repair call, which pays for a technician to find a fault and is waived for Comfort Club members.
The visit takes about an hour and produces a document, not a follow-up call. Under the Lowest Price Guarantee you can take that document to another licensed Florida contractor, and if theirs is lower on the same equipment, the same scope and the same warranty terms, TLS matches it and credits the difference.
Yes. One hundred percent of what you spend on repairs with TLS in any twelve-month period is credited toward a new system. A summer of keeping a fourteen-year-old unit alive is not money lost if you replace in September — the whole of it comes off the replacement price.
Courtney pulls your service history when she books the estimate, so the credit is already sitting on the quote before the estimator knocks. You do not have to find invoices, ask for it, or negotiate for it, and it shows on the quote as its own line rather than disappearing into a discount you cannot check.
This is why homeowners who have already paid TLS across two summer breakdowns are usually closer to replacing than they think. Money spent keeping the old system running is not sunk — inside twelve months it is money already sitting against the new one.
Sometimes, and the way to find out is to measure static pressure before quoting the system rather than after fitting it. Static pressure is the resistance a duct system puts up against airflow, read in inches of water column against the air handler’s published rating. TLS takes that reading on every call, including a fifteen-minute one.
The manometer comes out on the estimate visit, not on installation day. We take the reading at the air handler, set it against the rated external static pressure of the equipment we are proposing to fit, and write the number on your quote. Most companies quote a replacement without ever taking it.
Residential air conditioners are designed to move roughly 400 cubic feet per minute per ton — about 1,200 CFM on a 3 ton system. A duct layout that could not deliver that for the old equipment will not deliver it for the new one either, and a variable-speed blower is less forgiving about it, because it is commissioned to a measured airflow rather than left to push whatever gets through.
Three verdicts come out of the measurement, and all three are legitimate outcomes of a replacement quote:
The existing duct layout carries the design airflow within the air handler’s rated static pressure, the replacement is fitted to it, and nothing else is charged for. This is the most common result on homes built after about 2000.
The duct system is broadly right but leaking, or the return path is undersized and choking the blower. Correcting the return is quoted alongside the equipment rather than sold to you later.
Florida attics run past 140°F in summer and a duct system in that condition will destroy a new compressor inside its warranty period. Where that is the finding, it is a duct replacement as well as an equipment replacement, and we would rather say so in the driveway than after your new system underperforms.
Our Temperature Selection Guarantee — every room cools evenly — is written against TLS-installed ductwork specifically, because that is the only ductwork whose static pressure we control. On existing ducts you get the measurement before you buy anything.
Where a room was never reached by the ducts at all, a ductless mini split system usually solves it more cheaply than re-running the trunk.
TLS fits every major residential air conditioning brand and is a dealer for none of them. On a replacement that matters more than on a repair: a single-brand dealer has a direct commercial reason to steer both the diagnosis and the equipment choice. TLS specifies against the load calculation and the ductwork already in your house.
What decides which brand goes into your house is the calculation, the ductwork verdict and how long you told us you intend to stay. Availability decides the rest: a brand whose matching R-454B air handler is weeks away is the wrong answer for a house with no cooling in July, and TLS will say that rather than put you on a list. Not seeing your make? We fit it.
Matching matters more on a changeout than on a first installation, because the new condenser has to work with whatever the house already has. A condenser and coil are rated together as a pair, and TLS quotes AHRI-matched sets so the SEER2 figure on your quote is the one the equipment will actually achieve. Ductless mini split systems →
A standard TLS changeout on existing ductwork takes one day. A crew of TLS employees arrives in the morning, recovers the refrigerant from the old system, removes it, fits and commissions the new one, and leaves you cooling that evening. TLS pulls the mechanical permit and meets the county inspector afterwards.
Everyone on your property that day is a TLS employee — background checked, live scanned and drug tested, with 150 hours of training a year behind them — and it is the same company that quoted the job, because TLS subcontracts no part of any changeout. Courtney confirms the date and the arrival window with you before the day. Jobs that also involve duct correction or electrical work run into a second day, and you are told which before you agree the price.
The day runs in this order:
Your old air conditioner is de-energised, its refrigerant is recovered into certified recovery cylinders rather than vented, the condenser and air handler are dismantled and carried out, and the metal goes to a recycler. Recovery before disposal is required under EPA Section 608, and it is done by the same TLS crew fitting the new system.
Removal, recovery and haul-away are inside the TLS price rather than added as a disposal fee at the end of the invoice. Venting refrigerant to atmosphere is a federal offence, and for central residential equipment dismantled on site the EPA places the recovery obligation on the servicing contractor. The refrigerant in a fifteen-year-old R-410A condenser carries real value and real legal weight, which is one reason a replacement is not a job for an unlicensed handyman with a truck.
TLS does both. A mechanical permit is required for an air conditioning changeout in every county TLS works in, and TLS pulls it, schedules the county inspection and meets the inspector at your house. You do not file anything, and the permit record reaches you with the invoice.
The inspector verifies the refrigerant charge, the airflow, the electrical connections and code compliance against the Florida Building Code. The permit itself costs $100 to $395 depending on the county and sits inside the TLS quote rather than beside it. An unpermitted replacement is invisible until the day you sell, when it surfaces on the title search as an open or missing permit and becomes your problem at the worst possible moment.
Cleaner than the crew found it, which is a written guarantee rather than a courtesy. Under the Better Than We Found It Guarantee TLS crews work on drop cloths, wear shoe covers indoors and clean up after themselves — and if they do not, TLS sends a cleaning crew. The limitation is that it covers the areas we worked in.
The old condenser pad, the packaging the new equipment arrived in and the offcut line set all leave with the van. What stays behind is the equipment, a filter whose size you have been told, and the paperwork.
R-454B is the refrigerant new residential air conditioners are built for, and it cannot be put into your existing R-410A system. The two run at different pressures, use different compressor oils, and R-454B equipment carries an integrated leak sensor that R-410A equipment does not have. Replacing the system is the only route from one refrigerant to the other.
TLS quotes R-454B equipment as standard on a replacement. Where a discounted R-410A system is genuinely the better buy for your circumstances we will price both and tell you which one we would fit in our own house, because a refrigerant is a twelve-to-fifteen-year decision and it should not be made by whichever line on a quote sheet was cheapest.
R-410A is not banned and your system is not illegal. What is happening is a production step-down under the AIM Act: allowances fall to 40% of baseline for 2029 through 2033, 30% for 2034 and 2035, and roughly 15% from 2036. Every pound of R-410A made after that schedule kicks in is a pound competing for a shrinking allocation, and the R-22 phase-down is the precedent for what that does to the price of a recharge.
What the EPA has actually done is buy time for stock already built: a rule effective 27 July 2026 lets R-410A equipment manufactured or imported before 1 January 2025 go on being installed until those units run out.
If you are offered a discounted R-410A system, ask what you are actually buying. It is legal, it is not defective, and the discount is real. It is also a system you will own for twelve to fifteen years, whose refrigerant spends every one of those years on a declining production schedule. On a house you intend to sell in three years that may be a sensible trade. On the house you plan to retire in, it is a decision to take deliberately.
R-454B is classified A2L — mildly flammable, with a global warming potential of 466 against R-410A’s 2,088 — and the equipment is engineered around that, which is where much of the 15% to 30% price rise on new systems comes from. It is not a contractor mark-up.
Replacing a genuinely old system saves a Florida homeowner about $400 to $600 a year. Stepping up efficiency tiers within new equipment saves far less — roughly $185 a year going from 14.3 SEER2 to 18 SEER2, and about $280 a year going to 20 SEER2. Most of the saving is in replacing at all.
TLS runs this arithmetic on your electricity bill rather than a national average. Bring twelve months of statements to the estimate and the figures below get rebuilt against your actual kilowatt-hours and your utility’s rate, so the payback number on your quote is yours. On most Pinellas and Manatee houses the honest recommendation lands in the middle of the range, and we say so even though the top tier is the bigger sale.
SEER2 is the seasonal energy efficiency ratio measured under the 2023 test procedure, which applies external static pressure to the equipment during the test and therefore produces lower numbers than the old SEER scale for the same machine. The Southeast region minimum for a split-system air conditioner under 45,000 Btu is 14.3 SEER2; systems of 45,000 Btu and above must reach 13.8 SEER2.
Annual cooling cost on a 3 ton system in Tampa Bay, at roughly 2,200 cooling hours and $0.155 per kWh:
| Efficiency | Approximate annual cooling cost | Saved against 14.3–15.2 SEER2 |
|---|---|---|
| 14.3 – 15.2 SEER2 (single-stage) | $1,160 | — |
| 16 SEER2 (two-stage) | $1,090 | $70 |
| 18 SEER2 (two-stage) | $975 | $185 |
| 20 SEER2 (variable-speed) | $880 | $280 |
| 22 SEER2 (variable-speed) | $800 | $360 |
Run the payback and the honest recommendation is the middle of the range. Top-tier variable-speed equipment costs $4,000 to $5,000 more than base efficiency and saves about $280 a year — a payback of roughly sixteen years. Two-stage equipment at 17 to 18 SEER2 costs $1,500 to $2,500 more and saves $185 a year, and the Tampa Electric rebate covers much of that premium.
Comfort is a separate argument from payback and often the better one. Variable-speed equipment runs longer at lower capacity and pulls more moisture out of the air — and at an average relative humidity around 71%, a house at 76°F and dehumidified feels better than the same house at 74°F and damp.
No federal tax credit exists for an air conditioner replaced in 2026. Sections 25C and 25D both expired on 31 December 2025 under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and equipment placed in service from 1 January 2026 does not qualify. Utility rebates are still live, and Tampa Electric pays $550 on qualifying high-efficiency systems.
TLS supplies the two documents every one of these applications needs — the AHRI certificate for the system fitted and the paid invoice — and Courtney tells you at the estimate which programme your address falls under, so the Duke Home Energy Check gets booked before the work starts rather than remembered after it. What TLS will not do is quote a rebate into your net price before it is approved.
Large parts of this industry still advertise the expired $2,000 credit on pages untouched since 2024. It was real, it capped at $600 for a central air conditioner, and it is gone. Any contractor quoting it into your net cost is quoting a number that will not arrive.
Tampa Electric pays $40 on a system meeting SEER2 15.20 and $550 on a system meeting SEER2 16.20, applied for within 90 days of installation with the AHRI certificate and paid invoice. The gap between those two tiers is the single biggest reason to look hard at 16.2 SEER2 rather than base efficiency if TECO is your utility — one SEER2 point is worth $510.
Duke Energy Florida runs an HVAC replacement rebate for its residential customers across Pinellas, Pasco and Hernando counties, and it requires a free Home Energy Check to be completed before the work starts. Missing that step disqualifies the rebate no matter how efficient the system is, so the check has to be booked at the estimate stage rather than remembered afterwards. Confirm the current amount with Duke directly before it enters your budget.
Florida Power & Light, which serves much of Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee and Collier, also runs a high-efficiency cooling rebate. Courtney can tell you which programme applies at your address.
A new residential air conditioner in Florida carries a manufacturer’s parts warranty, typically ten years, plus TLS’s own labour warranty. Under Florida Statute § 559.957 the full warranty term runs from the installation date when a Chapter 489 licensed contractor fitted it, and it may not be conditioned on registering the product.
You do not have to chase any of this. The installation date, the equipment model and serial numbers, the labour warranty term and licence CAC1822364 all appear on the TLS invoice, which is the document that proves the start date if a manufacturer ever queries it. Keep it with the AHRI certificate.
You do not have to register the equipment to keep the full term. Section 559.957, effective 1 July 2024, states that the full length of a manufacturer’s warranty is effective on the date of installation if installed by a contractor licensed under part I of Chapter 489, and that failure to return a registration card does not diminish warranty rights or decrease warranty length. The warning printed on most registration cards — return this inside sixty days or your ten years becomes five — does not survive contact with that statute on a licensed Florida installation.
The warranty follows the house. Under Section 559.956, when residential property is conveyed the manufacturer’s warranty transfers automatically to the new owner and continues as though they were the original purchaser, and the warrantor may not charge a fee for the transfer. Transfer does not extend the remaining term — it hands over whatever is left of it, free.
An unlicensed replacement is not an enforceable contract. Under Section 489.128 a contract entered into by an unlicensed contractor is unenforceable by that contractor, and unlicensed work puts manufacturer coverage on the new equipment at risk. Check any contractor at myfloridalicense.com/wl11.asp, search CAC1822364 for ours, and confirm it reads Current, Active.
Most manufacturers make coverage conditional on maintenance, which is what an AC maintenance plan protects on a new system rather than an upsell attached to it.
TLS gives a replacement customer a full year to change their mind. Under the Totally Happy Guarantee, if you are not happy with the system within twelve months we remove it and refund your investment in full. Under the No Lemon Guarantee, two failed components inside five years means a complete system replacement.
Under the Lowest Price Guarantee we match a like-for-like written quote from another licensed Florida contractor and credit the difference — like-for-like meaning the same equipment, the same scope and the same warranty terms. Under the Workmanship Guarantee every person on your property is a TLS employee, background checked, live scanned and drug tested, with 150 hours of training a year behind them. TLS does not subcontract any part of any job, which is why the crew that fits your system is still accountable for it three years later. The full set is on our guarantees page.
TLS does, by calculation against your house rather than by copying the plate on the equipment coming out. Thomas Hoerig signs off the tonnage on TLS replacements, and the calculation goes to you with the quote. A large share of Florida systems were oversized when new, and matching the old tonnage repeats that mistake.
An oversized air conditioner satisfies the thermostat before it has run long enough to pull moisture out of the air, which is how a house ends up cold and clammy at 72°F. Load calculation as a design discipline belongs with a first-time AC installation; on a changeout it is the check that stops us selling you the wrong size twice.
Five documents, all of them yours. The written quote with equipment model numbers and the total; the load calculation that set the tonnage; the measured static pressure reading on your existing ductwork; the permit and county inspection record; and the invoice stating the installation date, the warranty terms and licence CAC1822364.
None of that has to be asked for and none of it costs extra. A phone quote gives you a number and nothing to check it against, whereas every figure on a TLS quote traces back to something a technician measured at your house.
Behind the paperwork is a company of 25 people working out of one building at 6210 44th St N in Pinellas Park, eleven years old, started by two brothers. Seth Hoerig owns it, Thomas Hoerig is Co-Founder and the AC expert who signs off the technical calls, and Courtney runs the office and books the estimates.
Ten Florida counties sit inside the TLS replacement service area: Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco, Hernando, Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee, Collier and DeSoto — 151 communities, Tarpon Springs down to Naples. Crews and price list are identical in all ten, dispatched from a single building at 6210 44th St N in Pinellas Park.
Coastal properties get replaced on a shorter cycle than inland ones. Salt air corrodes condenser coils on the barrier islands, in Cape Coral and along the Sarasota and Charlotte coast fast enough that a fourteen-year-old system there is often in worse shape than an eighteen-year-old system in Brandon. Say so when you book if the house sits within a few blocks of open water, because it changes which equipment we quote.
These are the questions homeowners in Tampa Bay and Southwest Florida ask most often before agreeing to replace a system — whether they need to be there, what can be replaced separately, what happens if the new system fails, timing, and whether the ducts change with it.
Call 941-269-3433. In office hours that reaches Courtney, who books an in-home replacement estimate at a time that suits you. The visit is free, static pressure is measured while we are there, your repair credit is already applied, and you leave with a written price rather than a phone call to follow.
Not urgent? Use the free estimate form and we will call back to arrange a visit.
TLS Air Conditioning · Licence CAC1822364 · 6210 44th St N, Pinellas Park, FL 33781