Variable speed AC worth the $?

No. It is not cash positive.

It will provide you better comfort by maintaining the temperature and humidity closer to your desired setting.
So, it that is important to you and/or you have only one home system, it is something to consider.

It’s a more comfortable system and over time you will save enough to pay for the additional cost. The key phrase is over time. You have to stay where you are now to reach the break even point.

I've seen better AC units in the quad.

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It will provide you better comfort by maintaining the temperature and humidity closer to your desired setting.

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Noise is a big factor. Much better about that.

I dunno if it's worth it but it sure is awesome. Would be difficult for me to go back to a single speed. You never hear it running and the temp/humidity in the house is much more consistent.

I did not get the variable speed, but I will for the next one.
I should have spent the money on the front ent.

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Need new central AC. Is variable speed AC worth the added cost? Anyone recently go from single stage to variable speed. If so what kind of energy savings did you see.

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Variable speed (variable capacity is the proper team for AC or heat pumps) really only helps if you have some tiny zones compared to the whole house and if it is oversized.

I have a properly sized system for my house with a 2-stage compressor. Even that I have found was overkill. I have overridden the settings for my system to have the AC run in single stage mode. It still keeps my humidity between 40-43%, even in shoulder times, and no measurable difference in energy usage.

I installed a 4 ton dual compressor A/C almost 20 yrs ago. It has a 1.5 ton and a 2.5 ton compressor. The 1.5 ton runs mostly for longer times which keeps the humidity lower than a single stage 4 ton compressor would. The 2.5 ton also comes on some times as needed.

The newer variable speed invertor units will run longer than single stage non inverter units, will keep the humidity lower, and provide more comfort. I will spend the extra bucks when mine needs replacing.

You can use an on-line calculator such as HVACOPCOST to determine the time (years) that you would breakeven from energy savings with a variable capacity HVAC compared to a traditional single stage HVAC LINK. Everyone has made good points as to pros and cons of inverter driven variable capacity HVAC units.

Best I’ve come up with from extensive reading on the subject is to think of it more in terms of investing in better comfort over a number of years rather than saving money in the long run because by the time you beak even in energy savings, it might be time to replace the unit.

They are very quiet both inside and outside.

They are more complex and expensive to repair should something go wrong and you best be sure whatever company installs one has 1 or more highly experienced techs on staff that specializes in inverter units. Not not all techs are trained to repair these units. Even if parts are covered under 10 year warranty, if a $2-3k control/circuit board goes kaput, the tech won’t carry one on the truck and the supply house may not carry expensive parts in stock and have to order them from the manufacturer. Usually not the case with a simple single stage HVAC. If you get one, better install a whole house surge protector and even a secondary surge protector on the outside condensing unit to protect the complex electronic controls during power surges/outages.

Ducts better be properly sized and insulated, that is duct work better be near perfect, to get full benefit of from the variable capacity HVACs because much of the year when heat/cooling loads are low, they will operate at slow speed and low air flow, and I’ve read where some techs have stated if the air handler/furnace is not centrally located in the house that the furtherest rooms often do not get sufficient air flow to properly cool or heat the rooms to the homeowners satisfaction during low load periods, others have reported condensation/sweating issues at grills with variable capacity units when operating at low heat loads after replacing a single stage HVAC, but again that all goes back to the duct work issues that weren’t properly addressed with installation of the variable capacity HVAC.

Anyway, these are things to ask any HVAC company but at the end of day if everything is installed properly, variable capacity inverter HVACs provide exceptional comfort and the systems are so quiet often times the homeowner doesn’t even realize the unit is operating.