HVAC question

If there are any HVAC experts around, I'd really appreciate some help. I've got an estimate that says the following:

1) Remove and dispose of existing equipment.
2) Install 3 1/2 ton, 13 seer condenser unit: Trane - 4TTB3042D100C
3) Install 90% gas furnace: Trane - TUCICI00A9481A
4) Install 3 1/2 ton 13 seer Evaporator Coil : Aspen
5) Install drain switch on coil drain inside.
6) Inspect and test unit.

The quoted price is $5800, which is almost a new 2015 Hobie TI... Originally, they quoted $8400 for some higher-end Carrier components (16 seer, 92% efficient furnace), so at least it's going in the right direction.

The house is located in Maryland and so far I've been unable to get a second opinion, and it needs to get done soon. So, I'm just wondering whether this estimate looks like it's in the ballpark or not. Thanks.

We paid close to 3,000 to add AC to our home.  The furnace was already there and set up to accept the cooling unit.  A family friend did the work.

You need at least three quotes. I normally solicite at least four just to be sure. Also make sure you tell them that you are getting other quotes so that they bid tighter.

To be honest, as someone that's done HVAC for 16 years and is one of the owners.. if someone tells us they are getting other bids that doesn't affect what I am quoting.

If I quote you 5,800 and someone else quotes you 5,000. Knock yourself out, go with that 5,000 dollar guy. It just means he's cutting $800 in corners that will affect the quality and long-term cost of the job.

The lowest bidder is just the guy who does the worst job out of all the people bidding by going cheap with flimsy parts, reusing stuff that shouldn't be reused, skipping stuff that will bite you in the ass down the line.

I can't tell you how many hack jobs there are in this industry. It is incomprehensible. And the common link between all these hacks are that they are the lowest bidder.

Find a local business that has been around a long time, and you won't get the cheapest bid but you'll get the best bid.

All that said, $5,800 sounds about right ballpark wise.  The low-SEER condenser is a big part of why it's less. In the long term it may not save you money to go with the 13 SEER unit but the price jump is really considerable.

Thanks for the info and suggestions.

We'll probably just go with this bid, since it needs to get done soon and it's been ridiculously difficult to get another quote (2 weeks of phone calls and email, all for nothing).

Thanks for the info and suggestions.

We'll probably just go with this bid, since it needs to get done soon and it's been ridiculously difficult to get another quote (2 weeks of phone calls and email, all for nothing).

A little off topic but,  I'm retired and am doing a kitchen remodel and some significant water damage/termite repair.  I've done all this work before and was planning to do it all this time.  Then I decided I didn't want to and started to TRY and sub out certain parts of the job.  Long story shortened up a bit, every reputable contractor I've be able to get ahold of has told me the same story, everyone who is any good has more work right now than they can handle and it has translated into people not responding to requests such as yours.  No excuse in my book, the ones I have respected the most have been to ones who took the time to respond even if to say "I can't touch your job til after the first of the year, which I heard more than once but appreciated more than the no response method.

Good luck with your project.

PS your note prompted me to find out about seer ratings and once and for all find out why AC is rated in tons and what it means.

A 1 ton AC unit can remove the amount of heat it takes to melt 1 ton of 32 degree ice to water in 24 hrs.   Or 12000 BTUs.  It's a pretty obscure measurement but there it is, goes back to the days when they used ice to cool.

It just means he's cutting $800 in corners that will affect the quality and long-term cost of the job.

The lowest bidder is just the guy who does the worst job out of all the people bidding by going cheap with flimsy parts, reusing stuff that shouldn't be reused, skipping stuff that will bite you in the ass down the line.

I can't tell you how many hack jobs there are in this industry. It is incomprehensible. And the common link between all these hacks are that they are the lowest bidder.

Wow. Please post up your business name so I know who never to use should I choose to have someone else do my work sometime. & next time someone asks for HVAC help you might want to post some positive advice instead of simply lambasting others in the industry. 16 years experience?   

To the OP here are some positive things to look for within the written bids.

City or county permits for both appliances, SO furnace & A/C.

Any necessary code upgrades?  Ducting, flue, electrical, gas, etc.

Duct testing, certification from the HERZ rater, work necessary to pass the duct testing.

Replacement or flushing of the copper lineset. Is the existing lineset the correct size & in good shape ie: no kinks, nice brazing work, insulation intact?

Replacement of the entire drainline.

Trane & American Standard make there own coils so that Aspen coil may or may not be OEM. Sometimes due to space restrictions the OEM coils are too tall but if possible they should be used because quoted SEER is always based upon matched OEM coils. & an already factory cased coil, whether OEM or not, is also important for proper airflow & to prevent conditioned air from bypassing the coil. ie: it's best not to shove a new coil in an existing case.

What is the factory warranty on the units? Those are probably TRANE XB's. Nothing wrong with that but for a couple hundred more you might be able to move up to the XR which have some nice worthwhile added features & possible better warranty. Worth looking into. If this is rental property I wouldn't pay for the XL line.

Also there's nothing wrong with 90% or 13 seer units. Remember when everything was 65% & 8 seer & even before they started testing for efficiency.

Dale, thanks for bringing up tonnage. I notice that the quoted furnace is capable of blowing 100,000 btu's /4 tons of air & the A/C is a 3 1/2 ton. Nothing wrong with that if you can compensate for the extra cfm but if you're going from a 80% or less efficient furnace up to a 90% I would hope the installer is factoring in all the extra btu you will end up with. Sometimes this requires going with a smaller btu unit.

Hope this helps.

HVAC is like any other trade. There are plenty of quality people doing great work if you look around.

I was offering him help in his selection of bids by explaining the downsides of going with the lowest bidder. There are obviously a lot of great businesses and HVAC installers/service people. I was giving him advice on how to avoid the bad ones. I think you read FAR too much into my post than I said.

To be honest, as someone that's done HVAC for 16 years and is one of the owners.. if someone tells us they are getting other bids that doesn't affect what I am quoting.

If I quote you 5,800 and someone else quotes you 5,000. Knock yourself out, go with that 5,000 dollar guy. It just means he's cutting $800 in corners that will affect the quality and long-term cost of the job.

The lowest bidder is just the guy who does the worst job out of all the people bidding by going cheap with flimsy parts, reusing stuff that shouldn't be reused, skipping stuff that will bite you in the ass down the line.

I can't tell you how many hack jobs there are in this industry. It is incomprehensible. And the common link between all these hacks are that they are the lowest bidder.

Find a local business that has been around a long time, and you won't get the cheapest bid but you'll get the best bid.

All that said, $5,800 sounds about right ballpark wise.  The low-SEER condenser is a big part of why it's less. In the long term it may not save you money to go with the 13 SEER unit but the price jump is really considerable.

I agree with this.  I'm a contractor and my price is my price.  Everyone knows you get what you pay for.  I get beat on bids all day long, but the use of cheaper materials is the reason and lack of proper licensing w/ insurances needed in this lovely state of CA.  Also bigger the company the more it costs, due to overhead.  just my 2cents

I was offering him help in his selection of bids by explaining the downsides of going with the lowest bidder. There are obviously a lot of great businesses and HVAC installers/service people. I was giving him advice on how to avoid the bad ones. I think you read FAR too much into my post than I said.

There is no downside going with low bid IF equipment, install, warranty coverage, etc is matched.

Your statements are the same as the low bid guy saying "The high bidder is just trying to make additional profit."

The best advice when selecting contractors is to use personal references & read legit reviews. Educate yourself to the work & equipment proposed.

Try to be onsite when the work is being done or at least have someone you know be there to keep an eye on things.

In this case there is only one bid so why not ask some more questions of the lone bidder?

& Texasboy, where I live there are some contractors who bid so much profit into their jobs that it would be easy to get two bids for close to double what it would cost any one of a number of competent lower bidding companies to do the work. Some of the difference is the higher bidding companies are aggressively advertising & get a lot more opportunities to make a sale. Advertising is expensive & does drive up their bids cost. So in some cases consumers are paying for advertising rather than superior material, workmanship, & after the sale coverage.

Unless I've personally witnessed jobs that were done poorly I reserve judgement.  So IMO saying low bid is always bad......is false.

You are still reading entirely too much into what I said. Apparently I need to go into far more detail than I wanted to.

Scenario A:

You find three companies with a good reputation. You get bids from all three companies and go with the lowest bidder. The bid is low because the company is able to keep overhead down better than the other two companies. Equipment and time spent doing the job right in all three bids is the same.

Great, going with the lowest bid is excellent in this scenario.

Scenario B:

You get three companies and don't know their reputations. You get bids from all three companies, and go with the lowest bidder. The lowest bidder is low because he is a two man company who doesn't know how to bid properly so he tries to cut corners in order to make a profit on his way-too-low bid. He does this by not pulling a vacuum before releasing refrigerant into the system (seen this many times), not leak checking the welds properly so it runs out of refrigerant within a year (seen this plenty), doesn't flush the system with RX11 before converting it from the old R22 to new R410A, only seals the gaps in the ductwork that is visible to the customer/inspector, and so on.

Going with the lowest bidder was terrible in this scenario, and all these issues will cost you a whole lot more money in the long term. These issues are not easily identified by looking at the bid you are being offered, because unless you personally watch them the whole time they do the job it would be simple for them to do all those things that will kill your system within 5 years and need costly repairs. The bid you are offered, even if they have similar equipment/warranty coverage/etc in this case was a terrible bid.

And I have seen this hundreds of times throughout my career where I had to fix previous installers mistakes from other companies.


No, the low bid isn't always the worst option. Which is why I recommended finding companies who have been in business for a long time (i.e. they will be around when things go wrong, when you need warranty coverage, and aren't such a huge company that they don't care if a couple customers get pissed off)

That way you raise your chances of getting a quality bid from quality companies.

And now I've spent entirely more time than I even wanted to on this.

And now I've spent entirely more time than I even wanted to on this.

Yeah it's more difficult to justify false statements than admit you spoke out of turn. Other than your recommendation to get a local business that's been around a long time your first post was entirely based upon your opinion that low bid always = worst job. That's your opinion & while it may sometimes be the case it's no more so with regard to HVAC work than any other. Sounds like you care about your work & that's a good thing & I applaud you for it. But bashing other companies & contractors just because they ended up having a lower bid is unprofessional & bad business practice. I don't see how that helped the OP & as a HVAC professional I won't let it stand unanswered. Higher bids are not the end all be all to the equation.

If the low bid was always the worst job, I would be a terrible installer because half the jobs I do would be the worst job because sometimes we are the lowest bidder.

So no, it is not my opinion that the lowest bidder is always the worst. I did not want to write a novel. The gist of what I was trying to say was this: "Don't just look for the lowest bid. Look for the best bid."

Sometimes the best bid is the lowest. Sometimes the best bid is the highest. Most of the time it falls somewhere in between. So it is a good idea to look at more than the numbers quoted to ensure you get a quality job.

If I did a shitty job explaining that then hey, my bad.  I wasn't trying to talk crap about any legitimate companies that are the low bid because like I said, sometimes my company is the low bid too. If I knew someone was going to take it so freaking seriously then I would have spent more time but damn dude, I was just trying to help so get off my case.

Thanks again to everybody---lots of useful info here.

The problem is that the house (a rental) is in Maryland and I'm in California. That's made everything a lot more complicated and time-consuming than it should be.

& RBark, no worries. Just giving my opinion.

I've always just replaced old linesets cause I like fresh insulation, pristine copper, & trust my brazing skills above unknown joints. That drives cost way up though.