Also, Bryant is the lower level Carrier model (think they use most of the same parts) so your Bryant guy would be making serious money off of you.
Recommendations on HVAC sales in Central Iowa
- Thread starter stateofmind
- Start date
Also, Bryant is the lower level Carrier model (think they use most of the same parts) so your Bryant guy would be making serious money off of you.
Monthly savings are not the reason for this move. We have definite humidity issues, and the sound and smell of the old one is driving my wife nuts. Multi-stage is the best way for us to minimize the sound of the fans, and the new coil will help with our humidity issues. Our dehumidifier ran all winter at 40%, unless it was 10 below.
Did any of your contractors perform a Manual J calculation to make sure your equipment was properly sized?
Schaal did, and Green's is going to tomorrow. Funny thing, I have a 3.5 ton Lennox. Bryant who didn't perform the calc by measuring windows, just by eyeballing ducts and stuff, quoted 3 ton. Schaal said we needed a bit more than 3.5 after his calculations so he rounded up to a 4 ton as the Carrier we picked doesn't do .5 ton. And the guy from Green over the phone said we were likely needing a 3 ton.
Schaal did, and Green's is going to tomorrow. Funny thing, I have a 3.5 ton Lennox. Bryant who didn't perform the calc by measuring windows, just by eyeballing ducts and stuff, quoted 3 ton. Schaal said we needed a bit more than 3.5 after his calculations so he rounded up to a 4 ton as the Carrier we picked doesn't do .5 ton. And the guy from Green over the phone said we were likely needing a 3 ton.
Interesting to see the range. I'd give a little more weight to the guy who did the calc.
Did you tell the guy over the phone that you had humidity issues? If so, that may be why they sized you lower. A longer cycle time will result in lower humidity in the house.
My guy did a Manual J and said a needed a 3 ton on my main level. Currently have a 4 ton, no humidity issues, so I opted to stick with a 4 ton unit. Plus, we've had issues keeping up with demand if we had people over and were using the oven.
I had a bad experience with Bell Brothers about 2 years ago. I may have just had a bad technician since others recommend them, and they seem to win "best in Des Moines" award every year, for what that's worth.
I know won't do business with them again though.
I've been using Lozier since then for annual tune-ups and have been happy.
What was your bad experience if you don’t mind me asking? They’re going to be at our place in about an hour to price out an AC unit. It looks like they install Carrier products too, which I know nothing about.
Install you'll probably be fine. My issue was during annual maintenance.
After I bought my first house, I had them come out to do annual furnace turn up in the fall. All went fine, $90, the guy was on his way.
Spring rolls around and I have them come out again. Long story short, the tech is at my house for about 2 hours and claimed I needed about $5000 in repairs. I contemplated replacing the whole furnace and AC. Luckily made some calls and got a second opinion.
2 years later and I'm using the same system. Had to put a capacitor in last summer but that's it.
I have a older system (approx 20 years old) so I know I'm going to be replacing it relatively soon but I'm going to get as much out of it as I can.
I just got the feeling the tech thought he was going to sell a new system that day.
When I was looking, I have a friend in the HVAC world that told me to stay away from Trane's in a residential application as they are usually over priced and have a lower warranty. They use a different design and are not as easy to work on when things go wrong, however, he said they are work horses and reliable. FWIW.
That seems high to me for a 14 seer (prolly 3 ton), if thats what the 14 in the name means.
Thanks for the info. Seer rating is up to 16 for that unit and has a two year labor and 10 year parts warranty with 24 hr service. We knew ours has been failing but we just got home from out of town and it’s 89 degrees in our house. It’s officially done for.
Bell Bros showed up within an hour of calling and are installing on Monday. Haven’t heard back from the other couple that I called. I guess I’ll see how it does.
After my recent experience, I would highly recommend Bell Brothers to anyone looking. It was a very clean install and my wife said both technicians were very pleasant with both her and our curious 7 year old. They rearranged their schedule and were here first thing at 8 AM because they knew we were without AC. They also didn’t try to sell us anything beyond the AC system, which is big, because upselling unnecessary equipment or services is an automatic no go for me.
Do they normally recommend replacing the furnace as well when you replace your A/C?
Our AC failed about 6 years ago during a very hot July week. Bell Brothers was able to install a new system (including furnace) within a couple days. The old furnace was fine but the efficiency of the new one is much better. We use their biannual maintenance program and it has been great. The only thing they’ve upsold me on had been regular maintenance items like humidifier pads.
Our furnace was replaced by the previous owner 6 or so years ago. Not sure why they didn’t replace the AC at that time since it was 18 years old at that point.
We are finally looking to get this done. We are going with Green's, we are just very impressed with Dan Sprague the owner. We are replacing our Lenox with an Amana, 18 SEER I think, and it's $8,500 I think for AC, Furnace, Thermostat, etc. 3,000+ sq. ft. w/o ranch.
