Desperate help needed, please.

Hello!

I bought a condo a few weeks ago. During inspection of said condo, the inspector ran a heat gun thing over the vents and verified that the heating and air were working great (he said much better than other units he had seen in condos), and the outdoor unit was only two years old (2014). He said that since it was working so well, there was no real need to get into the crawl space to look at the indoor unit (also he thought he would not be able to fit in to look at it).

Closed out and moved in a few weeks later -- A/C is not working. A little air would come out through the vents, but would peter out shortly thereafter. I looked at the line and saw there was a little frost on it. Turned off unit and frost disappeared. Called warranty company to look at it, and after a ton of back-and-forth I finally had to get a third-party company to come look at it. They looked at the outdoor unit and said it was leaking and the flare nut needed to be tightened. He added freon and tightened the nut and said it was fixed (the indoor unit was inaccessible at the time as the condo office was closed at the time). He suggested we have someone look at it. Next day, cranked up A/C and same problem occurred -- this time there was a block of ice on the line. Unit has remained turned off since (this has been a few weeks).

Called company back to look at indoor unit. He said that the evaporator coil was damaged beyond repair (they suspected someone must have run the unit without a filter for a while), and had likely not been functional for years. The indoor unit is apparently 20 years old.

They said that the entire system must be replaced because it uses R-22, thus the broken piece cannot be replaced. The warranty company is arranging for a second opinion which should be coming later this week. I called the inspection company who said that the prognosis is ridiculous -- the coil can be cleaned or replaced and they think I'm getting scammed. I was quoted at $7,000 to replace the entire unit and am very skeptical that the warranty company will cover this cost (or any cost, for that matter). Is it possible to replace just the evaporator coil? The condo unit is 755 square foot.

We've been without AC for nearly a month now (it is hot here in VA) and are living on needles essentially for this unforeseen cost.

Does anyone have any guidance on what I should do about this? Any insight? Kind words? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much!

submitted by /u/occupylawlstreet
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