On Friday, September 6, 2019 at 6:09:52 PM UTC-4, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 9/6/2019 6:00 PM, trader_4 wrote:
On Friday, September 6, 2019 at 5:04:38 PM UTC-4, Davej wrote:
Why the heck would you need a variable speed blower? That doesn't
even make any sense to me. I was pricing a new system until I
noticed that your only choice was a variable-speed blower unit,
which of course bumps the price up.

Idk why variable speed blower would be your only option. One thing pushing towards that is the quest for energy efficiency. An ECM motor is more efficient and when you have that your a good ways toward variable speed. Variable speed let's it spool up and down very quietly. It is also useful with two stage furnace or AC. Downside is if it fails they cost a lot more than a regular motor. I have one, 8 years now, no problem, lower electric bill.. On the other hand the ECM fan motor on the condenser failed. It was 350 for a new one, so for 90 switched to a regular, split-phase one.


Coupled with the two stage you can also have a much more even
temperature at a given setting. I thought about it for this house as
they offered a couple of options but the cost was way too much. Couple
of hundred I'd go for but it was thousands more.

Then the company was probably playing games. If you look at the actual eqpt, the
cost difference is a couple hundred bucks, assuming it's just the variable
speed blower, which when I was looking, you could get at least from Rheem.
The whole cost difference between a basic 80% nat gas furnace and a 93%, two
stage, variable speed was maybe $600 cost of the actual furnace, like
$1300 for the basic, $1900 for the better one.