A small house with two bedrooms and 1 bath. Current system is about 15 years old, 2-ton 10 Seer heat pump with the rest of the furnace part in our basement. It has a bad reversing valve and neither the heat or air works for that reason. The general quote is about $900 to fix the rv valve. To me, it isn’t worth it. It’s old, the core is dirty and needs cleaning, the vent ducts have dog hair, dust and dirt in them, etc. I am pondering just changing out the whole system if I can find a reasonable price. I’m looking for a basic system on the low-end. Yes, I know that it may use a little more energy and may not be as efficient as the crazy expensive systems, and that’s fine.

The current system has a full charge of R-22. Will the company that takes this out and replaces the whole system credit me for the R-22 value’ Or can they not do that’ I know that they will have to drain it into a tank because it can’t be released into the air, so they would basically be getting that free if they couldn’t credit it.

Secondly, I am pondering another type of system. While looking online, I came across a machine that is a combo heating/air unit that goes outside of the house where the heat pump is. Of course, I know that the blower would still have to be in the basement for the ducts to connect to. Here’s the issue I am pondering:

The people that lived in our house before us were forced to put the hot water heater (which was apparently in the kitchen) in the basement. But it is a 2-3 foot crawlspace that is all dirt. So they dug out this hole about 3.5 feet deep, 15 feet long and about 3-4 feet wide and put cinderblock bricks all the way around it. When it rains, because it is lower than the surrounding ground, of course water comes in. They put the water heater at the far back end, and a sump pump with a sump at the far front end. In between these two lies our furnace/blower system. One time the power went out when it was raining a lot and water came up on the lower part of the blower about 6″ or so, but it has continued to work fine and that was years ago. The system we have now is what is apparently the blower assembly on bottom with the furnace stacked on top (almost up to the floor joist of one of the rooms). I know that the blower assembly would need to be in the basement, but at least with that…we could add another foot or two of height and have it further off from the ground and not just on the 2″ cement base. That way, it would be protected from any water issue since the main combo machine part would be outside. How much would this cost vs getting a regular system as-is like we have’

Thank you for the answers.
Note that the combo heat/air machine that I saw online was about $1,800 for the unit alone. I know that the blower, ducts, installation, etc. would be more. Will I be able to get a similar setup for around $3,000 to $3,500 or is that too cheap for a system like this’