need to have a new natural gas furnace( forced hot air) installed to replace a 40 year old unit. Having different contractors coming over to give bids. What are the better furnace brands available? The existing furnace is a coleman, circa 1968
Thanks
Replies
We're happy with our Carrier so far. The Amana units looked good when we were shopping, though.
After studying the whole landscape for a couple of months I concluded that it's a competitive business and you get what you pay for, pretty much.
(And, IIRC, Goodman is a lower quality version of the Amana.)
We got the Lennox Signature Series high-efficiency two-stage unit two years ago and have been very, very happy with it.
There are six major manufactures of residential furnaces in the US: Carrier, Goodman, Lennox, Nordyne, Trane and York. All of the dozens of brands are made by one of these guys.
Amana is made by Goodman. Heil and Bryant are made by Carrier. American Standard is made by Trane.... You get the picture.
Like someone already said, you get what you pay for. Almost all have similar offereings across the range of features available. And while I work for one of the manufacturers, I find it difficult to differentiate the products on a performance and/or quality basis. I have two furnaces in my home, both by different manufacturers and both operate equally well, though they are marketed very differently.
For instance, Goodman gets a bad rap, but it's marketed to the "hacks" in the industry, and they usually cause the "quality" problems associated with that brand.
Ignore all of the marketing hype and research the features you might want. Then, and this is real important part, research the potential installers. Pick a good installer, and go with the brand they are the most comfotable with. IF it fails to operate satifactorily, THEY, and not the manufacturer, will be the one you have to count on.
let me throw this brand at ya. haier ac condensor units,
how would you rate them and do they make them or another manf? it's to late now but lay it on me, i just bought 8 of thier ac units today...........i can always ebay them if they aren't worth putting in. larryhand me the chainsaw, i need to trim the casing just a hair.
Hair ..???? BWAAAHHAAHHAHAAHAAAthat's the Cheapest Crap ever imported ...Bwaaaaa
way to uplift my spirits.
i think i'll go have beer now.
thanks,larryhand me the chainsaw, i need to trim the casing just a hair.
go for a 12 pack ..look at the info w/ the unit's ..can you read Chinkinese ..??
Chinkinese! great i'll have reason not to read the instructions. i really am a little skeptical, but really all there is to a condensor is ,compressor, a couple relays ,capicators, fan motor and the condensor itsself. i am hoping that the relays and motors are servicable,the compressor is probably made in the same place most of them are. well see they are getting shipped in next week. larryhand me the chainsaw, i need to trim the casing just a hair.
really ....??so ...is the Compresser ..A Manurop..?
A Bristol..??
A Trane ..??
A Carrier ..?
a Copeland ..??Nooooooo ... itsa made of 3rd world metals, who knows where ..Sri Lanka ..?Bwaaaaahahahhayou Effin'. Builders ... Kill MeNOTHING HAS ANY VALUECAN ALWAYS BE BOUGHT CHEAPERlike your current Drywall Sub ..
not only that , but the cost to repair, will be 3X the original equipment cost ...Bwaaahahha
Care to give us some background on yourself?
Any basis for your firmly expressed views?
May your whole life become a response to the truth that you've always been loved, you are loved and you always will be loved" Rob Bell, Nooma, "Bullhorn"
"We Live" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kuBgh0VCqI&mode=related&search
And Annie Ross's "Twisted" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lqivrCIRGo&mode=related&search=
it's a bristol scroll compressor,would of prefered copeland but this is what they got. the way everything goes it's probably made from a old chevy that was shredded and sent to china to be sent back.i can't think of anything that overseas manf. hasn't touched somewhere along the way.
by the way i'm not a effin builder.i'm a effin landlord,thats way on down the food chain from being a builder.only ones below me are car dealer [did that for 20 years before i moved up to landlord] and those lowly lawyers,they make alot more than i do so that helps their standing. so i'm third from the bottom most days,so whats your ranking?larryhand me the chainsaw, i need to trim the casing just a hair.
I've heard of them. I know nothing about them. Good luck.
You know I gotta argue with you. :)
Carrier doesn't make Hiel or any ICP products.
But they are both owned by United Technologies.
Actually, United Technologies owns a lot of companies we know by other names, including MagicAire. MA, unlike Carrier, Bryant and now Heil, have maintained or at least did until recently, separate management and manufacturing. In regards to their residential furnace lines, Carrier, Bryant and Heil are manufactured at a single facility. The same goes for the coils and condensing units. The commercial unitary products of ICP, Carrier and Bryant are all likewise manufactured in a single facility. Whether the name on the buildings is United Technologies or Carrier is immaterial.
Of course, this is nothing new. For decades, until the Oriental companies started making inroads, about 90% of refrigerators and dishwashers sold in the US were made at Appliance Park in Louisville.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
Absolutely.
Bottom line: The least expensive brand available, installed and serviced by a competent professional, is preferable to the most expensive brand installed by a hack.
While ICP (Heil and others) is owned by United Technologies as is Carrier (Bryant, Day and Night) do they really use the same parts/designs.A couple of years ago I went through the 3 websites and looked at some features and it appeared that the ICP lines was completely separate from the Carrier lines.Is Nordyne the Emerson brand?.
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
A couple of years ago, Heil/ICP and Carrier/United Technologies were separate companies, operated and managed separately. As the large companies absorb the smaller ones, manufacuring gets consoldated as well.
The features offered under one brand name vs that offered under another brand name by the same manufacturer (once manufacturing of similar types of products have been consolidated) are ways of exploiting the market for higher profits and/or market share. For instance, York has a hot gar rehat dehumidifcation feature available on their Predator line of unitary products. The Coleman line (made by York) is identical inevery aspect except the name plate, had no such feature available.
During the time period I worked at an HVAC wholesaler, Goodman bought Amana, which had (and to most people still has) a reputation of being on the higher end. Since that aquisition, Amana manufucature has been consolidated into the main Houston manufacturing plant of the Goodman line. Still looks the same, still has the same warranty, and still costs the same. We also sold a York product branded as Coleman (all current reincarnations of Coleman residential HVAC equipment name is owned and made by York, not true in the past). The model numbers were different, but they were all made on the same assmbly line in Norman, Oklahoma (and individual repair part numbers were identical).
You will probably find different features available on a GMC truck vs. a Chevrolet, but they're both the same, decent vehicles.
My point being, that regardless of the features included in a various products brands, when manufactured in one facility by one company and one set of employees, is that the quality from brand to brand, line to line in unchanged.
Tim gave some good advice. I have several good friends that are HVAC installers and they say most are about the same with a few exceptions. They dislike Lennox, something about proprietary parts that are difficult to find when they break and they like York, Trane and American Standard. The Trane and American Standard's, from what they say, exactly the same except the sheet metal exterior and paint color. But the Trane is quite a bit more expensive than the AS.
Whatever you get, spend the extra money and get a high efficiency one and check with your gas company and state to see if there are energy rebates. In my area, they need to see the existing furnance before you install the new one in order to get the rebate.
I bought a Goodman for the rental and it has been flawless. My gravity unit finally went and I bought another Goodman. I had contractors telling me that the sheet metal is thinner and that's a load of BS. It has worked great, very quiet and I bought both through http://www.alpinehomeair.com. They have a sizing calculator, contractor assistance and they'll call the contractors for you. Fast, helpful and very easy to deal with.
Alpine Home Air doubles the original warranty on the heat exchanger, too. You may save some money if you look at their site.
I used the same contractor both times and would definitely recommend him again.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Edited 8/10/2007 5:07 pm by highfigh
I think you'll find that the warranty isn't as good on the Goodman as on the equivalent Amana, and that things like the heat exchanger are made of less durable materials. I'd expect that this sort of thing is true for other manufacturers' different brands as well. It's not that Goodman is cr*p, but you're getting less because you're paying less.As I said, you get what you pay for. It's actually a very "fair" market where if you pay 10% more you're going to get about 10% more value.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
"think you'll find that the warranty isn't as good on the Goodman as on the equivalent Amana, and that things like the heat exchanger are made of less durable materials."That's what I heard form other contractors and the original warranty is ten years, but Alpine doubles it. First year, any problem with the furnace and it gets replaced, including labor. After that they pay the labor and parts. After the labor is up, they still pay for parts and shipping. I can't really see a downside. Why would they put a long warranty on cheap parts? They may save a few sheckels up front but it'll bite them in the end. I know what you're saying about the price but after getting bids that were 2-3 times what I paid, I can't see why one unit will be so much more than another, when they both use the same circuit boards, blower, similar cabinets and there's not much more to the unit than that, other than the heat exchanger. It ain't rocket surgery when it's a basic system. Multi-zone, automated systems, etc are trickier but the bottom line is that they do the same things, some are a bit better and some are much better. The last furnace for the rental was a Rheem and I have seen other threads (which we both replied to, IIRC) where the blower relay died, due to short cycling and the fact that they only used one set of contacts. The failure might have been avoided by using both sets but the unit was too big and that's what really caused the problem. The board was a Robert Shaw part, and was very common, although I was getting quotes of close to $600 to replace a part that I could buy at Johnstone Supply for $200.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
We got 3-4 different bids, all equivalent within $50 after accounting for feature differences.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
Wow! Within $50 is really amazing. I had quotes of $2000 just for a replacement and a transition to the old plenum on the rental furnace. I thought that was ridiculous, so I paid $735, shipped to my door, installed it and THEN found out that the state regs had changed so I can't install my own. The inspector let me find a contractor who would do a full inspection and test, then bless it with his license # and after I paid $85 for inspection, $40 for permits and $200 for electrical (needed its own dedicated circuit), the total was $1050 and I was done with the first one. My furnace was a gravity unit, so I decided that it wasted way too much space in that part of the basement and yanked all of the ducts below the floor joists. I called the same guy and he installed all new ducts, plenum/cold air return ducting and block-offs. $735 for the furnace, $750 complete for his work and it was done, other than the dedicated circuit for that one. I had quotes of $3000 for the same work from a couple of places and it didn't matter who disposed of the old one. This guy does a very nice, clean job and as I said, I definitely recommend him. He even had a number for a guy who disposes of things like that and it took him an hour to get there from the time I called. I took the ducts in to the hazardous waste dump (asbestos- kept it good and wet) and they tossed them into an open-air bin- classic, eh?
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
great example of why Builders are possibly The Worst market ...
for HVAC....go buy a 40,000$ kitchen .....you could care about just how cobbed the Heat/Cool is ...
Who said I'm a builder? I have a duplex and can't see spending a lot of money on heating a house that was badly built in the first place, although even after the previous owners either did little to it or did things badly, it's in a helluva lot better condition than when I bought it. I did a lot to make it better cosmetically and mechanically. Removed most of the wall between my living room and kitchen, moved the entry door back, new kitchen cabinets, all of the upstairs entry and passage doors, carpet, kitchen floor, hardware and fixed every crack in the place, using metal corner bead in all corners- horizontal and vertical. New counter and doors/drawer fronts in the rental, vinyl floor in the kitchen, carpet, stripped and repainted all of the doors, new hardware, sink, replaced most of the trim and fixed the windows. Exterior- new entry doors/jamb sets, storm doors, landscaping and I replaced the roof, gutters, garage and driveway.It's not a big place and it doesn't need a 90+ heating system. The ductwork is fine and the new furnaces are working very well. It's not cobbled together at all. Any cobbllng was done by the previous owners. I'm undoing their unhandy work.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Yeah, most of the bids had itemized options -- they didn't all quote the same set of options for their base, but when you did the arithmetic they came out about the same. Of course there were things like the variable speed DC motor that one didn't quote, so you gotta look at the price deltas on the other brands to figure an equivalent.BTW, I strongly recommend the variable speed DC motor if you run your fan a lot. It'll pay for itself in a year or two if you do.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
Just to make things clear to anyone reading this who is new here, any goodman bought over the internet has no factory warranty. Probably never be a problem for you, but there are other dealers that may not be in business 10 years from now.
Don't know of *any* manufacturer that will honor a factory warranty if the unit is bought over the internet- including those mini split systems.
I had seen people saying that they carry no warranty and I called to ask- Alpine Home Air told me that they still honor the factory warranty and extend it. I guess I'll see, if I have a problem. If they don't honor it, I'll definitely post it here. Actually, I'll post it either way.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Guess you just have to wait for an Alpine Home Air tech to come out and fix it..... :)
They said I can have one of their partner contractors do the repairs and the one who installed mine is one of them.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Be careful buying a Goodman unit online. I sell them wholesale, and if you read the Goodman warranty, it says any unit bought online has no warranty. So unless you can get AlpineAire to warranty it you will not have a warranty.
As I said, they told me that they will definitely honor the warranty and If I have a problem, I'll see if they do or not and post here, either way. So far, it has been better than the original in the rental and the only think I hear upstairs is a bit of rushing air.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
"it says any unit bought online has no warranty"
Bull. Complete fabrication.
No Goodman warranty says anything to that effect whatsoever. Have you ever read the Goodman Warranty on any product? I have, and sold them at a wholesaler for two years (and we also filled and shipped orders for AlpineAire).
I have a copy of the Goodman warranty in front of me and it says there is no warranty on anything sold online. You can also go to
http://www.goodmanmfg.com and scroll to the bottom of the page and look on the right hand side about warranties on internet units.
I stand corrected. My bad. I heard of this so called "policy" years ago, and looked into it at the time. There was no such provision. Obviously, now there is.
No big deal, our sales rep had told us that, but when you were adamant about it, I had to double check myself, to make sure I wasn't wrong.
I was employed by Ferguson Enterprises in the Rockford, IL area a few years ago, and we did process Goodman orders for AplineAire. Had someone bring up this issue. In 2004, it wasn't the case.
I'm now enjoying my Goodman AC now. The best advice I ever got from BT is...........its not the brand it the installation. I found out who was the best in town and hired him. Didn't care about price. The way they carried themselves really impressed my wife. And when the wife is happy...........everybody is happy.
"Brand" is only a small part of the equation. Installation is the most important part of the whole project.
The unit should be sized properly for your house using a Manual J calculation- not using the size of the existing unit.
Small changes in the ductwork at the equipment can make a huge difference in airflow and performance.
Get the most efficient furnace you can afford, but bear in mind that a properly sized 95% furnace will only save you 15% in fuel costs compared to a properly sized 80% unit... *propely sized* being the key words here. The added costs involved with going from 80% to 90+% may never be recouped.
Goodman 90+% units will be louder than others that have a sealed combustion chamber. Goodman doesn't because it is cheaper to manufacture.
If you install a 90+%, do a two pipe system (intake and exhaust).
If your existing furnace vents directly into a masonry chimney, you *MUST* have a chimney liner installed. To the best of my knowledge, only Trane has very specific guidelines and a kit to avoid this liner in some circumstances.
Two stage units will give you a more comfortable home.
A variable speed blower motor will save big $$$ in operating costs compared to the standard split capacitor motor, especially if you leave the fan on all the time.
in my home i have heil furnace and airs. 94% variable speed,two stage burners. i really like the furnaces, no problems at all with the furnaces.one of the air units makes lots of noise,other one don't.that way since new though.larry
hand me the chainsaw, i need to trim the casing just a hair.
Pick your HVAC contractor carefully and let him/her install whatever they carry.
To pick an HVAC contractor: track down and read Tim's posts here over the years and find one thjat comes close to him in knowledge!
May your whole life become a response to the truth that you've always been loved, you are loved and you always will be loved" Rob Bell, Nooma, "Bullhorn"
"We Live" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kuBgh0VCqI&mode=related&search
And Annie Ross's "Twisted" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lqivrCIRGo&mode=related&search=