Consumer Homes.

Question:

I have recently found myself in the market for a new gas furnace and 2 ton, 10 seer air conditioner.  I am thinking cheap since I will probably only be in this house another 2-3 years.  So far I have it nailed down to either a Goodman or an Aire-flo system.  Does anyone have any opinions one way or the other?  I realize neither of them are great, I just want to get the most for my money.  Also the bid for the Aire-flo system came in about $800 less. Usually I think you get what you pay for but from what I’ve heard, anything is better than the Goodman. Cheers, Wes

Response:

Exactly. Anything is better than Goodman. Interestingly enough, Amana, which way owned by Raytheon and is now owned by Goodman, is a very good furnace. Personally, I’d go for a decent 2-stage 80 (90% furnaces require much more work to retrofit) and use it as a selling point. Besides that, you’re going to be living there for around 10% of the life of the furnace. You might as well get something that will work well for you. A decent home inspector will tell a prospective buyer that you cheaped-out on the furnace. That raises a question about what else you cut corners on with maintainance. My mom just bought a house and the inspection showed that the previous owner was a tightwad. For example, he must not have wanted to pay an electrician to install a new, larger main breaker box. So, they double-tapped in several places. Guess what? It doesn’t meet code, so the seller has to pay to get it fixed…. I bet that will sure piss him off. He was too cheap to pay to do it the right way when he lived there, but now he has to pay to fix it for somebody else. hehe Seriously, you can tell prospective buyers that the house has a recent furnace of good quality. Urge them to call their favored heating contractor and ask whether your Lenox, Carrier, Rheem, Amana, whatever is good. Point out that it will save them money on their gas bill and give them no trouble for the next decade or more. Doing things the right way is seldom foolish. That new furnace or roof or whatever might not increase the amount you get for the house, but it will probably decrease the amount of time it takes to sell it. Time is money too. You’ll also know that you didn’t leave a piece of shit furnace to break on the next owner. He won’t come looking for you with a weapon (shotgun or attorney) in a few years. I’m not a heating contractor, but I did just buy a house and am going to put in a new furnace this summer. I did some research and it became obvious pretty quickly that being cheap costs you more. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – >I have recently found myself in the market for a new gas furnace and 2 >ton, 10 seer air conditioner.  I am thinking cheap since I will >probably only be in this house another 2-3 years.  So far I have it >nailed down to either a Goodman or an Aire-flo system.  Does anyone >have any opinions one way or the other?  I realize neither of them are >great, I just want to get the most for my money.  Also the bid for the >Aire-flo system came in about $800 less. Usually I think you get what >you pay for but from what I’ve heard, anything is better than the >Goodman. >Cheers, >Wes

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