I'd do a search on Angie's List. That sounds high to me.

I've never used Angie's List. How reliable is that site?

I never ever recommend purchasing HVAC through a big box store. Price sounds absurd to me, even for sunny California...and not a fan of Lennox.

IMO

I use both Yelp and Angie's list if the same contractor is listed on both. You pay a small subscription fee for Angie's list. Both sites are good and both have some quirks.

Yelp has a "filter" which is supposed to filter out fake reviews (paid positive reviews, negative reviews by competitors, etc.), but I found that they also filter out a fair share of legitimate reviews. You can read the filtered reviews, however, filtered (now called "not recommended" reviews) don't count in the star rating.

Angies list publishes all reviews, but a good share of the reviews from HVAC contractors are by people who had the $79 yearly tuneup. It's hard not to get an "A" there unless you miss the appointment or the tech is late. In fact, Angies list contractors often run "specials" for cheap services so have a lot of "A" reviews that get averaged into the relatively few installs. To use Angies, list, scan down the list of reviews for a firm to find the larger jobs (job cost is in the database).

Thanks for the suggestions. Just signed up with Angie's and setup 2 appointments with. I do agree that the price is overprice from Home Depot.

Did the contractor itemize how much of the quote is for new duct work? It is difficult to comment if the duct work is a fair price or not without knowing the details. Even the equipment is some times difficult if the installation is in a location that makes it difficult.

Nope, he didn't itemized the cost per equipment and labor. He just gave me a lump sum total. How much does ductwork cost for 8 rooms?

It definitely looks a little high. Angie's List is a good place to look. It holds contractors accountable and gives customers a chance to share experiences. Highly recommended.

HVAC Fort Collins

Got another estimate today.

American Standard Seer 16 4 ton
model GOLD XI condenser
and Silver SI Plus Furnace with new ductworks and electrial works for $8,700

Does this sound more reasonable?

You may not need 4-Ton of cooling for 1850-sf in SO CA.

Do a whole house load-calc & do what you can with the house & duct system airflow to reduce required tonnage. Less tonnage will be more efficient...

http://www.loadcalc.net/

$87,000 are you kidding; sounds like everyone is a bit pricey; guess they think you are very wealthy,

There is S CA and there is S CA. Are you inland or closer to the coast? The H&C requirements can vary greatly. Even inland, in the big heat, your system sounds oversized. Is the house a slab or is there a crawl space? I believe you would be better served with mini-splits than trying to add ductwork to an existing home. Also, the CA codes require that the duct system pass a pressure test and that your duct system not leak more than 6%. Insist upon the test. Make sure you get your monies worth.

for revlimit

Am Standard is quality HVAC, same as Trane. However their quote is not similar to the Lennox quote. If you like, I can make some recommendations to improve on it with a couple of upgrades that I think would be beneficial to you and your comfort. Let me know if interested.

IMO

Hi Tigerdunes,

I am open to all suggestions. I just had a Costco rep come out last night and gave me a quote of $13,000 for a 3 ton Lennox unit and said that is the biggest I can fit in the furnance closet. Strange how the other quotes didn't complained about the closet space when they tried to put in a 4 ton unit. The Costco rep did not take any type of measurment and didn't even look up in the attic at all. He was in and out of here in less than 20 mins. I am definitely crossing him off my list.

I live in the San Gabriel Valley and it is slab no crawl space. Tried to use the Load Calc provided by udarrell but some of the questions is beyond me. For example, when asking about the SQ FT of the North wall, it is asking about the surface SQ FT such as the height and the width?

Revlimit

Can't do it today but I will send you several options over the weekend.

TD

The surface area of the wall would be height X width. The program needs all of the dimensions of the house including the direction. This information is used to generate the heat gains and losses.

Thanks Mike. Can someone explain the ceiling measurement? According to the help. "Ceiling: Enter the sq. ft. of all ceilings exposed to an attic or roof joists."

When it is saying exposed to an attic, does that mean there is no insulation between the ceiling and the attic?

You need to enter any ceiling which is below an unconditioned space. That could be an attic or a roof deck. At some point you will enter the amount of insulation between the ceiling and attic or roof deck. If you are not sure what the insulation is, put in an educated guess. The values can be increased or decreased if necessary.

Ceiling and walls between conditioned space do not have to be entered. They represent no heat gain or loss.

Got it thanks.

I must be doing something wrong cause I get the following values. Seems a little too low.

Total Btu's Cooling 26748

Sensible Load 25787

Latent Load 961

Total Btu's Heating 19252

What indoor and outdoor design temperatures are you using?

Check everything carefully. I was also skeptical about needing a 4 ton AC. You can see how contractors who don't do a calculation are prone to over size the equipment. They will over size the AC, and then over size the furnace in order to get a blower large enough to accommodate the condenser.

This is how you end up paying $87,000 for your over sized HVAC equipment. :)

Design Indoor Cooling Temp. :°F 75

Design Outdoor Cooling Temp. :° F 89

Design Indoor Heating Temp. :° F 70

Design Outdoor Heating Temp. :° F 40

It is acutally $8,700. It was a typo on my end.

"Got it thanks.

I must be doing something wrong cause I get the following values. Seems a little too low.

Total Btu's Cooling 26748

Sensible Load 25787

Latent Load 961

Total Btu's Heating 19252"

---------------------------------------------

Looks about right to me if you got the insulation & other factors close to right; even if the temp were to creep up to 78°F indoors for a short time during extreme load conditions, you should be comfortable.

That is much better than having it oversized; because a 2.5-Ton will be way oversized most of the conditioning times - a 3-Ton would be much worse.

You never want to oversize an A/C. You want the duct system properly sized & the return air filter area oversized.

You can always do things to reduce the heat-gain and usually to increase the A/Cs Btuh heat absorption output. The equipment has to be properly installed...

So base on these numbers, I would need a 2.5 - 3 ton and not a 4 ton unit?

revlimit

Assuming load calc is correct, you would need 2 1/2 ton AC condenser.

This begs the question of what size you are replacing both AC and furnace and how it performed. I would be more concerned about the size of your existing AC outside condenser.

Here are my suggestions on AmStd furnaces and AC. Furnaces would be oversized but it has to be to get the blower rating you require for AC. You want the best matching AmStd evap coil for your application. No third party substitute. I always recommend a box filter media cabinet. Thermostat to be discussed.

XT80 AUD1B060A9H31B Silver XI single stage high eff blower

XV80 AUD2B060A9V3VB Gold SV 2 stage var speed

Gold XI 4A7A6030H1 AC condenser.

IMO

Oversizing HVAC equipment is never good, especially if you live in the humid South and East. You are in a drier climate but should still size the equipment appropriately. Have the installer do a load calc to compare to your own - you may have made some mistakes along the way. How big was the existing system? Did it heat and cool the house adequately?

The house never had an AC unit and the furnance was 20+ years old and was removed.

My last quote just came in:

American Standard 4 ton

Condenser:4a7a6049h100a

Furnance:aud2c080a9v4vb

Coil:4xaduc62/c

Equipment: $4325

Parts and labor: $2000.

Electric: $500

Labor and parts for the ductworks: $3000

Total: $10125.00

udarrell and sktn77a are right about not oversizing HVAC. Our AC would continually cycle on and off because the roofing contractor who installed it for us way oversized it. It is inefficient and to be going on and off.

I just don't understand the sizing. Don't recognize the coil number quoted. Request matching AHRI number to confirm.

IMO

I'll check with the contractor to confirm the model equivalent on American Standards website. Another question is does the stamp grille versus the bar type grille makes any huge difference? Should I change all the grilles to bar type? How much is usually the cost between stamp and bar type?