What questions should I ask a home HVAC estimator?

[Indy_Guy_77]

Getting close to the season when we're going to take estimates to replace the furnace (natural gas) and air conditioner in our home.

What sort of questions do I need to ask the estimator?

Warranty length & terms?

Expandability? (We currently have an "extra" attached 3-car garage that we hope, eventually, to convert ~400sf into living space)

Do whole-house humidifiers really work and are they worth it? (shying away from this in general due to very hard water...that the softener just brings down to the "slightly hard" level judging by how long our single-room humidifier filters last)

I'd LOVE to have the units moved from the center of the house out to our normal parking garage, but I'm afraid that'd be too costly.

-J-

 

[Thumper]

If it's Dial One ask them to get the hell off of your property.

 

[hoosierdoc]

Ask for a discount for non-emergent replacement at their convenience. We do not have a humidifier on our new house and my son has had six nosebleeds in 8 weeks. The HVAC guy showed 18% humidity leaving our furnace. I was going to do the humidifier but we need a replacement furnace and will redo it all in September to save some $$. We have a lot of hardwood in the house too and the humidity would help maintain that. My fishtank evaporates 2X as fast in this house without a humidifier than the one that had it. Curious.

I think they have humidifier filters you can soak in the CLR crap and clean rather than replace but I'd check. I would stay away from Airtron based on experiences with them in our home we built. Johnson heating and cooling has been professional with us in the new home.

Good luck!

 

[tenring]

Ask if the current duct work in the house is compatible with the out put of the new equipment.

 

[joker762]

definately go with a whole house humidifier if you have the room on your furnace. all humidifiers work best with soft water as well. if you don;t have one now then you'd be wasting your time having one installed. it would need serviced in a matter of weeks if you run hard water through it. idealy you want the humidity to be 30-40% in the winter and 60-70% in the summer. as far as moving the unit to the garage, that could be tricky. lots of it depends on if your unit is an upflow or a downflow.

 

[joker762]

and as far as your really hard water is concerned, check into a brand of water softeners called "water-right". they are fantastic with extremely hard water.

 

[Ebux]

You could set a mineral removing canister filter at point of use for your humidifier. If you put it at the hum. Then the filters would last much longer than if you install it with all of the households water passing through.

 

[jeremy]

If the have a Female Installer that is is nice to look at...

 

[bman1962]

I would check the brand name of the equipment he is quoting you, then you can compare apples to apples. There is a huge difference in the price of the different brands of equipment. My good friend had a new furnace and a/c put in his house and later found out that there was a $500 rebate from the manufacturer. The installing contractor never told him about it and the contractor collected his $500. My friend never saw the money.
I have been in the hvac business for over 20 yrs and I don't think the above mentioned problem with the contractor is common, but it does not hurt to ask.

 

[Indy_Guy_77]

Good stuff so far, folks! I appreciate it!

As far as water softener / whole house humidifier:

We have an almost brand-new "high efficiency" water softener; softens all the water save for the line to the fridge and a nozzle on the sink; both of those for drinking water, obviously.

It might be worth having our "soft" water tested to see just how soft it is...

-J-

 

[DRob]

From personal experience............

If you have a humidifier installed, make sure it is located where a clogged drain will not cause it to overflow into the furnace. Water in the furnace electronics (which usually happens on the coldest weekend night of the year) probably means a new furnace.

Ask about rebates and tax credits. We got both after the above-described event. Our HVAC guy told us about them and provided the necessary documents but ask anyway.

 

[DRob]

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