Air Conditioning - A/C Advice

Here's the deal. New Trane 12 seer heat pump installed in 2000. Worked fine since then. Serviced twice a year since 2002. Recently advised that there was a leak at the inside unit (air handler). No reason to not believe them. They are a large local A/C firm that has serviced the unit and the service rep ran the leak test in my presence. OK I probably need a new air handler but I would rather go with a Carrier air handler. Just feel I should have gotten more than 8 years out of this Trane unit. Maybe not ! So maybe I'll have better luck with Carrier. Is there any problem matching up a suitable Carrier air handler with an existing Trane Compressor unit ? Or are these matched "sets". I think I know what Carrier and Trane would tell me. Anybody have an opinion on this issue ? Thanks

Id say stay with what you have . Best if the coil is a match for the condenser. You never know when a coil might go out No mater who made it or who's name is on it

I think you just need a new coil not an entire air handler. I agree with Ed, you don't want to start mixing and matching different brands if you can possibly avoid it.

I have no information to suggest that a Carrier coil will outlast a Trane coil. At 8 years, any coil can start leaking.

I agree with Jim., any coil can leak at 8 years, so don't blame Trane.

Trane has a new coil that is all aluminum coil to prevent from this from happing with lot of newer homes being tight, and all the off gas is "eating" away the metal in the old coil.

Read this, might explain why only 8 years until failure.

http://www.hydro-temp.com/help/drawings/Formicary_Corrosion.pdf

Very good link there Jarrad.. I knew I read something, but that was better.

In my experience I have run into many more carrier coils leaking in the first five years (carrier, Heil, Tempstar, payne, Day and Night) than Trane and American Standard so the chances of your being more dissapointed ie. another coil failure in the next two or three years is less with replacing the existing coil with a Trane replacement you can just replace the coil rather than the entire air handler and you don't have to worry about compatibility.