The plastic blades on the squirrel cage fan in my bedroom A/C unit broke today. Several of the blades broke off. Incidentally, the blades on the outer fan were replaced at the FROG rally by some Airxcel techs going around looking for that model on RV's and saying it was an upgrade to the model. I thought that is nice of them and OK'ed the replacement. I'm pretty sure the replacement didn't cause the squirrel cage fan blades to fail,,,, but I broke my rule of "don't fix it if it ain't broke" and therefore may have jinxed it.
Anyway, I'm trying to decide whether to just replace the squirrel cage or replace (upgrade) the entire A/C unit.
From what little I could find online, the labor is about the same (2 hrs) for both operations. Of course the A/C unit is more expensive than the fan, but it's been my experience that when one part of any machine is replaced it seems to reduce the life expectancy of the other parts of the machine. It would be my luck to replace the fan and a few months later be replacing something else. Sooner or later, you reach the cost of a new A/C unit.
So, for $400 to $500 more I'm thinking about just replacing the whole unit. It is a 13.5k BTU unit now, so I may upgrade it to match the 15k unit in the living room. But before doing that I need to see the difference in amps used between the units. Again, using the internet, it says the newer A/C units are more efficient and pulls less amps. I need to verify that too.
Any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.