Thanks, Elmer. I had a Bryant installed by inept installers 16 months ago and have had nothing but problems ever since. I don't have anything against Bryant equipment, though.

Can the botched work be undone and redone correctly? 16 month old equipment should be good as new unless something extreme happened.

Consumer Reports has reliability data listed for Central AC units and also under Heat Pump units. As I recall, Trane (American Standard) and Carrier were good. Amana also rated pretty well for reliability. Amana has the best warranty and you can purchase an extended warranty for labor up to 10 years from any contractor that participates in Amana's "Asure" program. Amana offers limited lifetime warranty on the compressor to the original buyer on their most energy efficient units and will replace the whole unit if the compressor fails. Goodman used to own Amana and Goodman seems to have a bad reputation for quality, but Goodman and Amana were bought out by Daikin.

I have a Lennox unit that has not been reliable so I would not recommend Lennox.

To answer your question, Elmer, I've had 15 visits from this company. I figure they've had many opportunities to redo the work correctly. I've simply lost faith in the company's ability to make things right.

Thanks for your input, Bob. I have concerns about Lennox and its reliability. Just had a visit from a Lennox rep. I mentioned that I pay $30 for air filters for my Bryant furnace. He said the Lennox filters cost $160. Good grief.

As you have gathered from your other post, the equipment is all pretty much the same. It's the installer that makes or breaks the experience. You may want to go to HVACtalk.com and look at their list of contractors in your area. Dont worry unnecessarily over brand; I'm guessing you dont want another Bryant, or Trane, or Lennox. That doesn't leave many choices!

Actually, sktn, I would be OK with another Bryant. You're right about Trane and Lennox, though.

Bad address, sktn. I agree, this site you mentioned is very useful. Here's a link to the correct address of the residential forum. Note that while anyone can ask a question, only pre-screened folks with valid industry creds are allowed to respond.

Hvac Talk Ask Our Pros (AOP)

I am partial to Amana for the simple reason they give me no trouble for warranty claims parts are nearly always obtainable with little to no wait time. On top of that, the manufacturer is located here on the outskirts of the cities in which I service.

In addition to that the distributor is located a stones throw from my home. The conditional lifetime replacement of certain Amana condensers and furnaces is second to none.

I also offer IPC brands that come in a close second to the Amana brand and the higher end models of the IPC brand comes with 10 year conditional replacement. The IPC brands are made in Mexico. For those who don't know who IPC is, the parent company is UTC (united technologies corporation) which is also the parent company of Carrier.

The IPC distributor is fairly close to my home as well. Maybe 5 miles if that.

To me brands don't matter really, I've used as many as 8 different brands over the past 10 years --- what matters is the games distributors play in warranty parts, trouble in contacting them for parts (waiting on phone for over 30 min is unacceptable), trouble getting parts in timely manner... many of these things and more dictate which brands I choose to sell.

They all break at some point. I am providing a service, that service (I provide you) is dependent upon the service I receive from the distributor and ultimately the manufacturer.

I can fix any brand I can get parts for. So what difference does brand really make?

It comes down to the bells and whistles you want in terms of comfort for your home, after that it comes down to your service provided to fix it and or service it when those needs arrive.

"Bad address, sktn"

Oops, yes, forgot the "-" - should be hvac-talk.com

Here's the link for the contractor map:

http://hvac-talk.com/vbb/showthread.php?853762-Contractors-Locator-Map