I'm looking to replace my 12 yr old furnace (came with the house when I
bought it a few years ago) with some decent and am looking for a good
contractor to do the job. Although no one here can tell me which
contractors are good in my area, perhaps you can help me out. So far I
have 3 bids on the job and am not looking for too many more bids.
House is a 2 story colonial and a total of about 1600sq.ft. without the
basement. I'm looking to get the furnace replaced with a 92% AFUE (or
greater) two stage unit.

Anyway, here's the story.

Company A:
A couple of weeks ago I had the A/C serviced at which point I had the
service tech look at pricing out a new furnace as well. He noted that
the present furnace is way oversized for the house's duct work (125000
BTU). He recommended an 80K BTU unit along with all the associated
replacements (humidifier), etc. While he was there, he also
reconfigured the existing furnace to slow down the blower and allow it
to run the air slower over the A-coil so as to make it more effective.
He gave me a quote on a Trane, but didn't really detail model numbers,
etc. His total time was probably around 1 hour including the time it
took to service the A/C.

Company B:
This guy came in purely to give me a quote. He looked at the furnace
(didn't really take any measurements) and recommended a 100K BTU
furnace for the house, indicating that two stage units can be sized
lower than the existing furnaces. This guy had all the pamphlets for
the furnace components and went over them in detail. He gave me two
proposals listing all the part #'s for everything he was putting in -
one with a new AC unit and one without - knowing that the AC unit
outside is only 5 years old. Total time spent at my house was around
80 minutes.

Company C:
The guy also came in to give me a quote: He took measurements from the
furnace (measured all the duct work around the furnace) and indicated
what the work would be - while we were around the furnace; He also
took a look at the AC condenser before he gave me the quote. Anyway,
he gave me the quote detailing the work and all the components he was
going to use (with part #'s). Total time spent at my house was around
30 minutes.


Company A/B are selling Trane units while Company C is selling Lennox -
I don't think that's a make/break situation are both are very good
units and a hell of a step up from what I have now.

Lastly, Company A/C are within 10% of each other in cost while Company
B is about 80% more expensive than Company C.
Also Company A has been around for 35years while Company C has been
around for at least 15 years and they do offer 2years labor. Not sure
how long Company B has been around as this wasn't brought up by the
sales guy.

Sorry for being long winded on this but I would like to get honest
opinions on this.

Thank you.

I've never seen a service person (company A) also do quotes. One
factor is whether they actually measured and calculated your needs or
guesstimated; with a new system there's an elaborate exercise to calc R
values, window sizes, etc - not saying this has to be redone - but they
should show their work.

I'd ask everyone who lived around me if they had a good or bad story
about A or C.

Can't remember if you're natural gas for heat - I would also go with
the hi-eff that uses no chimney - one less thing to screw with in the
future, and utilitiy rates will double in the next 10 years IMO.

If you're in a temperate climate (Atlanta, +/-) would a heat pump be
better ?

You really didn't give us enough details to say much. I have no idea
about the sizing or the equipment for Contractor C.

wrote:
You really didn't give us enough details to say much. I have no idea
about the sizing or the equipment for Contractor C.

Sorry about that. Contractor A/B were selling Trane and Contractor C
is selling Lennox. He had specified a 70000 BTU 2 Stage furnace.

wrote:
I've never seen a service person (company A) also do quotes. One
factor is whether they actually measured and calculated your needs or
guesstimated; with a new system there's an elaborate exercise to calc R
values, window sizes, etc - not saying this has to be redone - but they
should show their work.

No, all 3 of them guess-timated. The only measurements were done by
Contactor A and C; they measured the duct work to see how much it would
handle.

I'd ask everyone who lived around me if they had a good or bad story
about A or C.

Don't know anyone that has used them...should I ask for references?

Can't remember if you're natural gas for heat - I would also go with
the hi-eff that uses no chimney - one less thing to screw with in the
future, and utilitiy rates will double in the next 10 years IMO.

All of them quoted 92% AFUE 2 Stage systems.


If you're in a temperate climate (Atlanta, +/-) would a heat pump be
better ?

Natural Gas...I'm in MI so I heat pump may be undersized.