we purchased a new house 7 years ago from shea homes. The A/C unit broke and needs to be replaced. We have had 3 different repair people com...

Question

we purchased a new house 7 years ago from shea homes. The A/C unit broke and needs to be replaced. We have had 3 different repair people come and all of them said our A/C unit is too small and a larger one should have been put in. Our house is 4380 sq ft and we have 2 3ton units. Is there anything we can do? Does the 10yr new home warranty cover the A/C system if it is the wrong size?

Answer

I'd say probably not; I don't know of any actual decisions on the issue of wrong-sizing air conditioning units, but even assuming it could be proven to the court's satisfaction that 6 tons total a/c capacity was inadequate for a 4380 sq.ft. house in Oakley, I'm doubtful that there's an obligation on the builder to provide any particular amount of cooling capacity. Maybe the builder intended to keep the interior below 75, and you tried to keep it at 70, or something like that. Also, the failure of the a/c unit isn't necessarily because it's undersized ..... perhaps it failed for some completely independent reason, notwithstanding that it's also true that it was undersized.