Good info on Extended Warranty. With all the electronic panels and controls, IF the EW covers damage from electrical surges, it is probably worth buying. Some companies give you back a portion of the warranty's purchase price at the end of the term if the warranty hasn't been used.--In that case, it's pretty much a no-brainer. Consumer Reports is of some use for laboratory-style info on products. Unfortunately, it is not of much use in the real world. It frequently reports on products that are already discontinued. If you actually READ what it says, and HOW IT SAYS IT, you will realized it is a very biased publication. It has great info on recalls and dangerous products. Read the rest of it with a grain of salt. You'll find more useful, real-world info on forums like these. Remember there are shills working for most companies that spend their days looking for their company's product mentions (and their competitors')on forums such as these. To glean the most useful info when googling for product info on forums, remember to throw out the very best and very worst comments, and look at what's left. That's usually where the truth lies. Let's face it--every company makes a lemon or two along the way. Humans are involved in the manufacturing process at some point. And every so often it's 10 minutes to "Miller Time" and one more piece will make the goal. Even Rolls Royce dealers have service departments... And yes, SOME salesmen will lie through their teeth to make a sale. Most of the ones that have worked for the same company a number of years are usually reliable. The less-that-honest ones usually flit from establishment to establishment due to customer complaints. No company can afford to keep a salesperson who creates customer-service issues. There is too much competition out there these days. Don't be afraid to ask your salesperson how long he/she has been selling the product, and/or how long he/she has been at his current company. Also, there are multitudes of like-products out there. A salesperson selling 6 brands of the same product may legitimately not know some of the minute details that you're aware of simply because you've zeroed in on one or two specific products, and the idiosyncracies of that product that are important to you. Remember--you're the one making the decision and spending the money. It's your right to walk out at any time. And if you really do want to "sleep on it", or "think it over", then do so--don't let yourself be arm-twisted into making a deal "today. right now"... But if you feel your salesperson has been up front with you, then common courtesy should apply to your treatment of him/her, also. If you've left your salesperson with "we'll let you know", then do so. What's the worse that could happen--you might be offered a better deal in order to earn your business?

We paid a designer a flat fee of $1800 to do plans/drawings for us. That price would have included some help picking materials etc. We ended up doing everything else. Another designer that I may work with to help me put the finishing touches on my home bills by the hour: $75/hour. I am confused. How many hours did he spend on your bathroom project? What did he do exactly? I think 3300 sounds excessive for even a 40,000 remodel unless the designer did everything and coordinated with your GC/subs and you didn't even lift a finger except to sign off on things. Was his original plan to charge you 3300 PLUS make a profit on materials he purchased for you? I think that is mind boggling. 3300 should cover a lot. I thought $1800 was a lot and I realize I didn't even need to spend that amount. My cabinet designer could have done what she did. I really want to know what your designer did!! You sound very reasonable, I hope you come to a good conclusion with this.

It is true that the builder's grade (low end) model of the Carrier/Bryant line up is the same as one of the Payne models. The warranty period on the low end and Payne models are shorter for the heat exchanger and parts. Unless you are very tight on funds, or plan to move soon, I would avoid Payne and any builder's model furnace. Spend a little more money and get a better furnace. I am also not a fan of moving a furnace from a conditioned space (laundry room), to an unconditioned space (attic). The move is expensive and the energy performance will be reduced.

Just posting an update since we met with the designer last night. Turns out that he would have been collecting the following types of compensation under his "flat rate" model: - charging us a flat amount for design fees - marking up purchases 12% from his cost - marking up bids from contractors by some higher amount (which apparently varies by project) to cover his costs for overseeing the project, insurance, etc. He said he made the switch to hourly given the amount of research and shopping we were doing. He also asserted that he would have earned close to the same amount for the project on the original billing rate because of the markups. That is faulty logic and we told him so - our budget was our budget so marking up purchases would have meant we would have been buying less items and/or lower-quality items in order to stay within our budget. 12% of $17K is $2200 no matter what items you buy for it. And our labor costs are modest because the space was already roughed in, so he would have needed an ENORMOUS markup on the labor charges to get anywhere close to the amount that he was showing as payable based on his hourly rate. We also told him that had we known that we were being charged for every hour of work we would have used him differently. Until I asked, he never presented an interim summary of his hours or billings, or mentioned any concern for how we would stay within our budget given how much of his time he was spending. But he WAS aware of our budget and knew that we were going to some lengths to try to stick to it. To me this is the most important issue that makes his billed hours an unfair amount. A lot of our time in research was spent trying to find affordable alternatives for some of the ideas that he presented - we didn't want to change the design but we couldn't afford to do what he was suggesting. Logic says that he really wasn't being that mindful of the budget issues in presenting appropriate ideas in the first place. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that this was a MAJOR disconnect on his part, which meant that a large number of his hours were billed without regard to what would be in our best interest. He conceded that he should have been much clearer about what terms he was thinking of changing and what the impact of that change would be on us. He is going to look at his time and use a couple of alternative approaches for how he could be compensated to come up with a number that will be his flat fee for the entire project, capped. Supposed to get Monday am. Said he really wants to oversee the completion of the work and understands that we will not explicitly compensate him for that. I am still concerned about what number he is going to propose but at least it will hopefully be in the neighborhood of a more fair amount.