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Ok guys, could you please let me know what you think about this quote? American Standard Heritage® 13 Heat Pump, Freedom® 90 Single-Stage Furnace, natural gas furnace, new thermostat, toe vent installed in half bath on first floor, which was missing a vent for some reason. Installer also said he would have to replace the metal piping with PVC as this is required for 90% HE furnaces.
My old furnace is around 15 years old, think it is an 80%.
For this equipment and install he quoted $5,500. What do you think?
He also said for $750 more he could install a Honeywell F300 electronic air filter. Would you suggest this?
It depends on your region. We replaced a 30-year-old furnace with an 80% furnace and added a heat pump (I want to say 3.5 ton but I don't recall for sure) in 2008 in the Seattle area. New thermostat. I got nine quotes ranging from $4k to $17k. I skipped the filters and humidifiers and all the extra crap. The job cost just over $7k, I believe. I did get the mid-model heat pump rather than the cheapest for soundproofing. So, your $5500 looks OK to me -- at least it passes the BS test.
You do need special venting for the 90% furnaces. That's one of the reasons I didn't go for a better furnace - we'll be primarily using the heat pump, only switching to furnace when it gets quite cold here. Didn't want to pay for building new venting. I do recall them talking about PVC. Heck, your $5500 is looking better and better, but I don't know how hard it is to do in your home, either. Happens to be a pain in mine.
The important question - are you certain that's the right equipment for your home? Did they do the manual-J calculation, did they take into effect the temperatures in your region? Sizing of the heat pump is something people mess up a lot, I think I learned. Getting all of those quotes, spending all that time with all of those companies explaining what they would do and why - that was a lot of information. When they converge on the same or similar models and sizes of pump and the same explanations of venting, that's a good thing.
Where do you live ? Heat pumps are worthless if it gets really cold where you live. I was in the HVAC mechanical field for a long time, residential and commercial. If you are in a northern climate where most of the winters are freezing cold, pass on the heat pump as it will spend all winter in defrost mode and not heating your home. My experience with heat pumps is all from Florida, a few of our really cold winters where it was mid 30's for a few weeks straight, all of my customers ran on electric heat as the heat pumps froze.
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