Did any of them do the actual calculations to verify the size of the
equipment they were installing or did they just replace what you had with
the same size stuff. If they did not do the calculations, they were all
worthless estimates and unfortunately typical of the industry in most areas.


"Les Wilson" wrote in message
...
We recently had a new gas furnace and central AC installed. Paid about
$4700 from a local well known company for Rheem equipment (2-1/2 ton 10
SEER
AC and an 80% dual stage, variable speed 75,000 BTU (I think) furnace for
a
1750 sq ft home). It took two guys a good 7 hours to do the work. We're
in
upstate NY.

A second quote from another local company that's well known was anywhere
from $4700 to $6500 for Carrier equipment - depending on the efficiency
ratings.

A co-worker's husband does commercial HVAC for a school district and does
installs on the side. He quoted me for $3700 for a similar Rheem
installation.

A neighbor across the street does HVAC for a living - saw the vans parked
out front and later on out of curiosity asked me how much we paid - and
said
he would have come under the quote from my co-worker's husband.

I don't have buyer's remorse - I was ready to go with the co-worker's
husband, but my father-in-law is also our State Farm agent and he had
insurance concerns and all that good stuff since the co-worker's husband
wasn't bonded/insured/licensed to do the work independently. My wife
didn't
doubt the quality of his work or if he would stand behind it - her concern
was if the installation was faulty she wanted deeper pockets to go after
if
something went horribly wrong. Also would he stand behind his work at 2am
in January?

I didn't bother asking the neighbor for a quote first because of something
went wrong with the install or if I went with someone else - I wouldn't
want
problems with him down the road. As a rule I don't do business with
friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, etc... - would rather deal with a
person I'll likely never see again - not mix business with pleasure - and
deal with someone who has deeper pockets should something go wrong and we
have to go into litigation.

I think what we paid was probably in the mid-range of what I could have
shelled out. For our house, a higher efficiency system would unlikely pay
for itself over what we had installed.

Did I get ripped - or was the $4700 I paid on par?