I had a new compressor unit put in for my central air about 6 tears ago.
last year it developed a freon leak. I already had an old 5000 btu window
unit for backup in my computer room. So as a temp fix I went out and got a
12,000btu unit for the front section of the house. After seeing how well
that cooled the front section I started testing electricity use. In short,
for less than it would have cost to replace the compressor unit again I
purchased seperate 5000btu window units for each bedroom. Total cost of
all window units was under $600 and my eclectric bill was cut by more than
30%. And during those 100F+ days when the central air had a hard time
keeping the house cool, the window units will freeze you out if you turn
them on max. Central air sucks for efficiency. I normally only run 2 of
the four window units at a time That uses about half the electrity the
central unit used and still keeps me more comfortable. The 5000btu room
units are easy to put in in minutes without having to make any permanent
changes to the window. The larger one din't require window changes but
it's pretty heavy and I leave it in year round. Another Plus is that if
one window unit fails, you won't suffer from the heat like you will when
the cenral unit fails.
