First and foremost -

New house contractors suck. And not in a good way.

12 years later, their suckage has compounded in interest.

Yes, it’s time to replace the Upstairs Air conditioning unit that was put in with the house.

It wasn’t the best quality unit to begin with… Tempstar. Having said that, with a fair amount of work each year for the past few years, it probably would have been fine. However, I can’t say that it was installed properly.

The feeder lines outside… There are three of them. Should be two. One obviously didn’t make the cut or WAS cut, so rather than pull it out, or otherwise clean it up, they just sealed the end, and left 3 feet of copper pipe hanging out of the side of the house. I HOPE it’s not still part of the system, and I’ll find out soon enough, but at the least, they could have cleaned it up.

Upstairs in the Attic, that’s where the fun really is. And no, I’m not going to put a picture in. I’m going to make you visualize it.

I’ve got 14 vents in the upstairs. 1600 square feet, approximately. 2.5 tons installed. Unfortunately, ALL of the vents hook up to a 5′ trunk hanging at a right angle from the top of the unit via long length’s of flexible pipe. Think of a silver Octopus or spider in the ceiling, and you’ve got it.

There is no effective trunk line. Everything is twisting and turning, and there isn’t any pressure. So even when I do have cooling, it’s not like there is any airflow.

So we have the different quotes. I’m not going to mention any company names, because frankly, I don’t want to advertise for any of them at the moment. I might afterwards.

1. $11K – 3.5ton AC, 4 ton Furnace, 3 ton Cooling Coil. 14 SEER. This also replaces about every piece of equipment in the house.
2. Goodman quote – See ‘Contractor’ grade below. He certainly didn’t mention that this was what he was quoting while he was here.
   • 13 seer $3.5k
   • 14 seer with 410a Freon and Variable speed blower – $6.1k
   • Remove old duct system and replace with hard trunk line and flex branches – with zone control for Bonus room – $7.3k

3. Waiting to even hear a callback – Not looking good for this company.
4. Company is close by me, and gave two options: Replace with 3 ton AC, 75,000 btu Furnace with a 13 SEER rating. This runs $4400 for Ruud. To go Horizontal on the system, and rework the ductwork system will push to $5k even.
5. Another close company is also quoting $4400 for a Ruud 3 ton unit, but with a 14 SEER. 80% Furnace (of the tonnage). They’ll rework the duct system for $750. He’d also sell a Goodman 13 SEER for $3875, but that’s getting in that ‘contractor grade’ systems.
6. Waiting on a quote from these guys. Should have it Wed.
7. Waiting for a quote from these guys. Should have it Wed.
8. The President of the company came out. Real nice guy. His company deals mainly with Trane, so that’s what was quoted. 3 ton, 13 SEER but with a 4 ton blower motor. They’d modify plenums, enlarge the trunk line to 16″ and re-run supply ducts & return air. $5.6k
9. Couple of options -
   • Carrier – 3 ton 13 SEER – $3.4k
   • Carrier and modify ductwork – $3.9k
   • Airease – 3 ton 13 SEER – $3k
   • Airease and modify ductwork – $3.5k

10. Recommended by my facility guy at work, the last guy is carrying Bryant. President of the company came out to do the quote.
    • 2.5 ton furnace with 2.5 ton coil and condensing unit. – $3.5k
    • 3.5 ton furnace with 3 ton coil and 3 ton condensing unit. $4k.
    • Additional 150 for dampers and extractor unit to route additional airflow to bonus room.

So that’s it. Thoughts anyone? I’ve got my own:

1. You have GOT to be kidding me.
2. No, really, YOU ARE kidding me. Unfortunately for them, this quote was carefully reviewed, but failed to get to correct address of the house, so I’m somewhat non-plussed about this as well. The first option (deduced by omission) is even on the old refrigerant.
3. It’s been two days. Not even calling to schedule to come out after two calls in? I guess you’ve got enough business to not need mine.
4. $5K for 13 SEER with the duct rework.
5. $5.1k for a 14 SEER rating? I wonder how long the payback is, if at all versus 13? Almost certainly better than option 4, but maybe not one of the later ones.
6. No comment yet
7. No Comment yet
8. $5.6k is about a grand or more premium for Trane. Is it worth it?
9. $4k for a Carrier 3 ton and reworking the ducts.
10. $4k for a Pressurized Bryant 3 ton.

Most everyone did not like the ductwork. Most everyone was happy to quote on replacing it. #10 was pretty up front about it, and brought up a pretty good argument. His approach is to try to pressurize the existing ductwork with a larger blower motor, and dampen/redirect as needed. If it works, you’ve saved 500-800 dollars. If it doesn’t work, then you have to do the ductwork anyways, but you’ve got some additional capacity to play with. He’s selling Bryant, from Carrier. Turns out I have a friend that worked for Carrier for a while, although not in the residential side. It’s all coming together in terms of production lines, although they aren’t without issues.

I’m more tempted by 8, 9 , and 10 than anyone else. 8 is pushing the Trane XR systems. It’s still a Mercedes price. I’ve had Real Mercedes and I can not say that it’s reliability was better than my Honda made Acura. Is the Trane? He’s also pushing a larger blower motor, but not the larger coil/compressor. This was the most ‘professional’ quote that I’ve received yet.

9 is selling straight Carrier. 3 ton unit, but would redo the ductwork to include a trunk line, dampered flex lines from the existing in order to create static pressure in the system. Basically $4k for the job. Technically, Carrier is probably better than Bryant, but since they are all starting to come from the same assembly points, does that matter as much now?

More as it develops.