On Jul 6, 11:46*pm, Dan Musicant wrote:
I just got a call from the guy who came over my house on Saturday. I
told him I'm investigating my options. Then I asked a few questions:

I tried to find out what exact relationship his company has with Pacific
Gas and Electric (PG&E, my utility company), and he says that this is a
state program (CA), and that it's just with PG&E and California Energy
Services, noone else, and that the contract was awarded to CES because
of their stellar record, rated A+ and 15 years without a complaint.

He says that the Trane discount on the furnaces is $2000 apiece (2
furnaces proposed for my house) for a total of $4000 and that that
discount will expire at the end of the month (i.e. end of July 2011).


You can go online and find the prices that you could buy the
furnaces for. ACwholesalers.com is one site, you can find
others. As an example, you'll find that you can buy a
Rheem gas furnace that's 45K BTU for $1200 including
delivery. That's a 95%, dual stage, variable speed blower,
a top of the line unit.
And that's YOUR cost for buying one. Presumably
a HVAC company can get even better pricing. If you want
AC too, that adds a similar amount. Trane eqpt costs a
bit more than Rheem, but it sure isn't enough more that
they could be giving a true $2K discount on a furnace or
it would be free.

Also, according to ConsumerReports, Rheem actually
got a higher rating than Trane and some of the other
companies. I think overall thought CR said that the
differences were not statistically significant, so I would
not be paying a premium price to get a Trane.





PG&E's rebates are $150/furnace. He says that the Trane discounts are
for this program only (I asked him that question specifically). He said
there's also a tax credit available of up to $200/system, but in my case
it probably doesn't matter. My income was so low the last two years I
paid zero federal taxes.

I asked him about permitting (I'm in Berkeley, CA) and he said the
inspector would come out and check out the furnace installation, nothing
else and that it would be part of the program, no charge to me. If the
program wasn't involved, I would be subject to a $300-$500 permit fee.


That sound fishy too. I've never heard of a municipality waving
permit fees because of any special program. But a quick
call to the building department could verify it. It's Berkely so
the fees could be high, but $300 to $500 sounds high to me.
Here in NJ you need 3 permits and the cost is around $200.





The no interest loan for one year is just that, never pay any interest
with one catch, being that I have to pay off the loan entirely by the
end of one year or I pay plenty of interest. The loan is through Wells
Fargo. If I don't anticipate being able to pay off by the end of a year
I can get a 9% fixed interest loan, otherwise it could be 25-26%. I have
a HELOC, so I could pay off the loan no problem before a year's up.

He says the furnaces would be 20,000 BTU apiece (he said that since my
house is almost 2000 square feet, the rule of thumb to have 10,000
BTU/500 square feet of floor space determines that), with 6 registers
each. * He said if I need a 7th register it would be no problem, no
charge. The ducts would be 6-8" R6 insulated. They'll run flu exhaust as
required, the one in the attic up through the roof and sealed as
required. The furnaces would be suspended (i.e. in the crawl space, it
would be suspended above the ground by brackets) and would be in the
center of the house to avoid long/short runs, or at least ameliorate
them.

That is where a lot of the total cost is, running the required ducting
for
a new install. The prices you had posted for the complete system,
ie $7500 for one furnace, $13,000 for two, actually sounds reasonable.




The problem of access was another thing I brought up. I wanted to know
if I'd have to pay extra for that. He said around $150-200. The furnaces
are 95.5% efficient, dimensioned 20" x 30" x 40", so they'd need a
20x30" hole to get them in.

That sounds very low if modifications have to be made to get access
to an attic. Also, what kind of access? Something that leaves a
permanent access thats larger or just a temporary hole cut in the
ceiling and then covered back up? Either way, $200 sounds very
low.





Do you guys still think this is a scam or that I'm being over charged or
that they really should check out the house more carefully?

Dan

Email: dmusicant at pacbell dot net

As I said before, they guy didn't even go into the attic to look
before quoting the job and proposing to install a furnace
up there. That is shyster. If they do business like that, I
don't want to find out what else they would pull in the
middle of the job.