Air Handler Upgrade & Replacement

The air handler holds the evaporator coil, the blower and — in most Florida installations — the electric heat strips. When it fails or corrodes through, replacing it alone is sometimes correct and sometimes a false economy, because an air handler must be matched to the outdoor condenser for the pair to hit their rated capacity and efficiency. Mismatched equipment will run, but it will not deliver what either component's label claims.

The work that determines whether a replacement performs happens at the connections: a plenum sealed properly rather than taped, a condensate pan trapped and pitched correctly with a working float switch, the coil matched and the line set cleaned or replaced, and the return sized to feed the blower without strangling it. Air handlers live in attics, closets and garages across Florida, and each of those locations has its own failure pattern — attic units in particular corrode from the outside in.