What a week... Our 28-yr-old air conditioner blew a few years ago, and
we'd finally gotten tired of sweating like chimps in Borneo, so we were
getting several quotes for a new whole-house air conditioner. Then the
28-yr-old furnace blew (or rather rusted out), so we find ourselves in
the market for both heating and cooling and we have a couple of
questions.

On the cooling side, the old unit is under the deck in a place about 5'
5" high. The old unit itself is about 2' 2" high. Two of the quotes
said that a new unit would need more headroom and need to be moved
further away from the house (adding to the cost) - otherwise, they say,
there won't be enough air circulation, the air conditioner will be
recycling the hot air it spews out, and it will burn out faster. The
other 2 guys say there's enough room and it doesn't need to be
relocated. I guess we should have gotten 5 estimates so we wouldn't
have a tie What do you guys think?

On the heating side, my wife noticed water leaking from inside the
furnace. Our oil company sent someone over, he cracked the case, and
the entire inside is massively rusted out. Since it was already
leaking, he said it could blow completely at any moment and advised us
to turn it off and leave it off until a replacement gets in - so we have
no hot water for at least the next few days. They said they'd try to
schedule us in as an emergency, but they have only one option for brand
(my wife doesn't remember the name, but it wasn't the ones we recognize
- Wiel-McCain, Carrier, or Trane). My wife said the brand they carry
was something like "Ream"...

Are there any brands that should be red flags? I guess for both heating
or cooling?

We had Sears come out and give a quote on the cooling, and they said
that Kenmore is just rebranded Carrier. We thought the independent guys
would come in a lot cheaper, but so far they haven't. Given the
warrantee and financing Sears is offering, it's making them sound pretty
good. Anyone have experience getting Sears to do air conditioning
systems?

Thanks
-Mark