My central-NJ home has a 31-year-old gas furnace and a broken central A/C unit that I would like replaced.
However, when I look up local contractors I see dozens and dozens of small businesses probably selling dozens and dozens of different setups.
Also, I have heard that there are multiple grades of furnace made by the same manufacturer, with about as much intentional confusion as is found in the mattress industry.
Any hints on how one can do this without suffering too much?
Things to look for? Things to avoid?
Get a couple bids. Ask around for who people use and if they’re happy with them. I just had mine replaced this past February and am very happy with the company - they weren’t the lowest bid, but their explanation of why satisfied me.
ETA - according to Consumer Reports and others, the biggest factor in performance isn’t brand, it’s quality of installation.
Start with steps like looking for a name on the existing furnace. The company that installed or services it at least has some knowledge of the set up, that may put them in a position to offer better/more detailed advice.
Ask you’re neighbors who they use.
When buying things like furnaces more important then the brand or the bells and whistles is a quality installer. The tradesmen who know what they are doing is far more important. They’ll recommend what they have the best experience with.
Well, there’s the local paper’s “Best of 2010” thing, for one thing. Then I admit, for stuff like this I do pick based on big professional looking ads. My plumber is a terrifying man in a battered pickup truck, but if I’m buying 20 years of HVAC I want the guys who bought the whole page. Some may disagree. Then I also called a company who had done some work under my home warranty. Went with the “Best of 2010”, actually. They were very professional and seemed extremely stable and knowledgeable. Later when the city inspector came he said he’s never had a problem with any of their installations and he’d reccommend them.
Ask anyone you know who has had work done.
Look around your area if you see a HVAC truck at a house stop and ask the owner how ws the work.
Have at least three contractors give you a bid. They should give you a detailed description of the work they are going to do. What size furnace (how many BTUs per hour and effency). What size AC system and how many tons.
How did they come by these sizes? Did they do any load caculations. Did they measure the size of the house size of windows and doors. Did they determine the amount of insulation in the attic and walls.
If their answer is along the lines of so many ton’s per sq foot get another contractor.
And avoid the temptation (or urging from the contractor) to get larger equipment than you need.
This is the starting point - determine the capacity of the existing equipment and ask yourself “How well did this equipment heat and cool when it was working?”. Meaning how well did it heat and cool and how long did it run when it cycled on/off? If the output of the old heater was 80,000 BTUs and heated the house perfectly well, then a larger one not be an advantage. If it heated the house very quickly and then shut off right away, you could probably use a 60,000 BTU heater. Same with the AC equipment. Oversizing is never good.
If you think the old equipment was sized right, then do not change the capacity of the units. Some contractors like to sell you more than you need because they make more money, but it’s not good for you.
Thanks for the tips so far. I will look at the aging unit and see if there is a contractor’s sticker on it (I believe there is) and will check to see if they are still around 31 years later.
Also, thanks for the info about sizing. I did not know this and it is good to know of the importance of getting the size “just right”
I do like good quality equipment, so where can I best apply extra $$$ where it will make the most?
And I will definitely be looking into the quality of the installation—this has been mentioned a few times as being more important than the hardware. Not sure how best to do this, however. I imagine that the building inspector probably wouldn’t want to say anything, as this might be a conflict of interest.
You can also check Angie’s List, though I believe it’s $50 (or so) for a year’s membership.
When looking at ads, I also looked for the ones that had the BBB symbol or Angie’s List icon on there, along with some sort of “25+ years of experience” or “Family owned since 1963” or whatever. While it’s all hype, these seemed to be a better indication of quality for me.
Maybe check with your gas & electric company. Sure, they’ll want to sell you equipment themselves, but they might also have a good line on quality companies in the area.
Where in New Jersey? I do support for HVAC for a national company, and am pretty familiar with a couple dealers in the Monmouth County area as I lean on them heavily for assistance on past issues with vendors we no longer do business with.
First, as stated by others, the contractor should do a load calculation. Not use a rule of thumb.
Extra money is probably best spent in areas of efficiency. A 31 year old furnace is probably a 80% efficient furnace and you can get more efficient units. Similar situation for the AC. Since you are replacing both at the same time you can probably get some very good results - the blower may have multiple speeds, you may have two stages of heating and cooling, etc… You’ll probably also need a different thermostat for these features, and it will be programmable so you can have setbacks and the like.
A good contractor should be able to explain all of this to you. If he can’t or won’t, skip him and go onto the next one.
I recently had my condo AC/heater replaced. Here in FL it’s big business and somewhat of a racquet. One alternative is to go directly to a distributor and find out about their prices on equipment that might suit your needs. That way you’ll at least know something about the wholesale costs, to know how much your contractor is marking it up (a lot). I actually bought my hardware directly from a distributor and my ‘helpful’ neighbor hooked me up with an installer who he’d worked with before and recommended. He turned out to be flaky and I ended up hiring someone else to finish the job but still spent much less than with the mainstream companies. You have to be careful tho and most contractors won’t install something you’re buying elsewhere.
Agreed. We replaced our 40 yr old furnace this past year, and out of the three contractors I got estimates from, only the last one really performed good customer service before his proposal was written up. He explained a lot about new furnaces and the technologies, offered general suggestions for improving comfort that were above and beyond the furnace itself, and other things that gave me the warm and fuzzies that his company was the right choice. He also informed me about an organization I could go through to get a loan to finance the furnace with a 7 yr term at 0% interest, which I ended up using.
Having an accomodation from Rich Trethewey from This Old House was the deal sealer, though.
Back to the OP, though - you’ve already started the process by asking questions here Now its just a matter of continuing to refine your research and making sure that what the contractors tell you is consistent and makes sense.
Now its just a matter of continuing to refine your research and making sure that what the contractors tell you is consistent and makes sense.