On Mar 31, 8:47*am, Smarty wrote:
I have spoken with several HVAC contractors regarding replacement of my
old Lennox central air conditioning system. All of them are Lennox
dealers except one who also carries Trane products.

The dealer who also carries Trane was trying to switch me from my
original Lennox preference, stating that the Trane coils, which are 100%
aluminum, rather than the Lennox coils, which use aluminum fins and
copper tubing, provide a better, longer lasting design.

He felt that Trane was superior in other ways also, since they used
"composite plastics" in the outdoor condensing unit case rather than
steel to ensure that no corrosion or rusting would occur.

The basic claim was that Trane, using aluminum for all of the
refrigeration loop, had a longer life expectancy that Lennox, given the
newer Puron refrigerant.

Does anyone have any experience with Trane, and is there any science to
support this type of claim or any other prior experience to say that
Trane is somehow better?

Thanks for any advice.

When I was replacing mine a year ago I looked at Consumer Reports and
other sources. My conclusion was there wasn't any significant
difference
in the trouble history among the common brands. I think Goodman had
more
problems some years back. Some folks still don't like them.
It looked to me like you're paying a lot more for the name in a Trane
versus say a Rheem. When I looked at the data, Rheem had less
repair problems than the top name brands, but it wasn't enough to
be statistically significant,

As to the reliability of copper, two points. The system I replaced
was
a 27 year old Ruud. It was still running and never had a service
issue
other than needing to put in a hard start kit about 12 years into it's
service. So copper obviously lasts.

Second, if copper is the source of problems, ask the installer what
they are going to use for a line set. The line sets are all copper,
so you're going to have a lot more copper in the system from that
than from the coils. I would suspect that Trane's decision to use
all aluminum is based on something else. Look up the current
price of raw copper versus aluminum.

One thing that everyone should agree on is that you are far better
off getting what is perceived as a lesser brand that is installed
correctly than a Trane that is installed incorrectly. A simple
exampe is do they flow nitrogen when doing the brazing? A
half-assed installer can save and skip that. The result is you
have crud form inside the lines that leads to failure down the
road. Another
thing to find out, are they replacing your line set or re-using
the old one? IMO, for the couple hundred bucks, it's worth
going with new, but again, installers can cut corners. If
you do re-use them, they have to be properly flushed. Those
are examples of where you can get screwed and the typical
homeowner would never know.