My AC unit was stolen or stripped for copper. What now?

Copper theft is a real problem in this part of the valley, and coming outside to find your condenser gutted or gone is a bad morning. Here is the order of operations that protects you.

1. Call the police and get a case number. Do this before you call anyone else. Insurers almost always require a report for a theft claim, and getting the number after the fact is harder than getting it now.

2. Stay away from the damage. Cut refrigerant lines and severed wiring are not a place to poke around. The disconnect box beside the unit may still be live even if the unit is gone. If you can safely reach your breaker panel, shut off the breaker for the outdoor unit and leave everything else alone.

3. Photograph everything before it is touched. The unit, the cut lines, the pad, the wiring, and anything left behind. Your insurer will want it, and so will we.

4. Call your insurance company. Theft and vandalism are commonly covered on homeowners policies, though your specific policy and deductible decide the outcome, so ask them directly rather than assuming either way.

5. Get an honest assessment of what is actually gone. This is where people overspend. Thieves usually take the outdoor unit, or cut the lineset and strip the coil, and leave the furnace and indoor coil untouched. Depending on the age of the system and whether the indoor and outdoor equipment can still be matched, the fix is sometimes an outdoor unit replacement rather than a whole new system. Sometimes it genuinely is the whole thing, and we will say that too. What we will not do is use a theft as an excuse to sell a bigger job than the damage calls for.

What it costs. Once we see it, pricing comes off the same published install list as everyone else: AC systems $6,800 to $9,400 installed depending on tier, heat pumps $9,800 to $14,200. If the repair is smaller than a replacement, it is quoted flat from the repair menu. Either way you get the number in writing before anything is scheduled, which is also what your insurer will want to see.

Protecting the new one. Worth doing before it happens again: a steel cage or condenser guard anchored to the pad, motion lighting, and keeping the unit visible from the street rather than hidden behind a fence where someone can work unseen. Ask us to price the cage along with the equipment so it is one quote rather than an afterthought.