Which one has the best AC compatibility .

The Trane dealer said both. We haven't talked to the other brands yet.

Unless you live somewhere very cold and have an old, poorly sealed and poorly insulated house, the furnaces quoted are close to 2 times too large for what should be needed. These are 60K BTU furnaces and if high efficiency, you're talking about getting in the high-50K BTU's of heat output for an 1150 sq foot structure. Very excessive.

If your window air conditioners cooled down your home in 5 minutes, you similarly had units that were too large. Properly sized equipment, both for heating and cooling, should have long run times for efficient operation and evenly distributed conditioned air.

Try calling a different HVAC contractor, this one isn't doing you any favors. Make sure a load calculation is done to come up with correct sizing.

What's a "gas inspector"?

The guy from our gas company, my own nomenclature, sorry.

Thanks. We live in the Northeast, so it does get cold. House is pretty well insulated, not to say it's perfect. Window AC's were 5000 upstairs, and 8000 downstairs I think. Not to divert from my original questions but while on the topic of AC, is having central air any issue with moisture in the ducts, mold, etc., versus just window AC?

What would be a proper size furnace versus what they quoted?

A central AC should not have an issues with moisture or mold in the duct work. It is possible that condensation can form on the outside of a metal duct. If that is the case the covering it with insulation will usually solve the problem.

A 40K or 45K BTU furnace (90% + efficiency) is probably the correct size. The problem is there are not many choices in those sizes. You may have to settle of a 60K BTU furnace. A 2-stage variable speed furnace is very nice. However you will not see much in energy savings. It will be more comfortable and quieter than a single stage furnace.

I recommend you get quotes for an AC also. You should save some money having furnace and AC installed at the same time. The smallest size for AC condensers is usually 2 tons which I feel is too large for your house. You may be able to find a 1.5 ton size but again the choices may be limited.

You should be getting quotes now for an April installation. It is the slow time of the year in the Northeast. You may save a little money and possibly qualify for a rebate. HVAC installers are less buy so hopefully they are not overwhelmed with work and take their time to do a qualify installation.

"A 40K or 45K BTU furnace (90% + efficiency) is probably the correct size. The problem is there are not many choices in those sizes."

I don't follow it that closely, mike but are you saying some brands don't come in smaller than a 60K gross size? If I encountered that for a dwelling of that size and a supporting load calc suggesting something under 50K gross, I'd probably spring for a two speed model so that lower levels of heat output would be used for comfort purposes.

When I shopping for furnaces several yours ago it seemed the 60K BTU size was a common small size. Perhaps this has changed in recent years.

60K may be a common small size but perhaps not the smallest available.

Not quite three years ago, I got a Bryant (Carrier) 45K (input) 36K (output) 80% furnace for a nearly 1500 sq foot somewhat leaky, poorly insulated freestanding home with single paned windows in a mild weather location.

The furnace installed is more than enough, as is the 2 ton AC unit. I think the load calc suggested that even this size furnace was a tad too large for what was needed.

I'd say you're getting a fair price for both of the Trane installs.

The Trane S9V2B060U3V is a 97% two stage furnace with the 1st stage gas input of 39K btu's and the 2nd stage input of 60K btu with a variable speed ECM blower motor.

The A951X060BU is a 96% single stage 60K Btu constant torgue ECM blower motor with 9 speed taps and will only run at one speed depending on the speed selected by the installer.

I would go with the S9V2B060U3V 2 stage furance just for the better comfort it will provide. It will consume a little less power running in the 1st stage (39K btu) with less noise and better heat regulation, but in terms of having barely any gas bill mentioned it is not true and your inspector doesn't know what he's talking about. Both units will save you about 5% to 7% on your gas bill over your older high efficiency furnace if it was 90% or 92%, or 15% to 17% if the old unit is a 80% furnace but your bills will still be substantial, just slightly lower. Both units could save you about $200 a year in electricity costs to run the blower motor so there are savings to be had.

With the two stage furnace it will run off a default program installed on the main circuit board with a basic thermostat and the wires you use now, but if you decided to upgrade your thermostat to a programmable thermostat to control the stages a few more wires may be needed and up to 9 wires. Ask your installer about the wires needed if you want to upgrade your Thermostat.

We have the typical old Honeywell thermostat with a Goodman “The Dependable 92” which is 26 years old and still going.

We don’t alter the temperature setting or need a timer because at least one of us is home all day.

I see the Carrier has a 2-stage versus a modulating. Is there a big difference?

I’ve read so-so reviews on Goodman, but since the one in this house has been reliable for so long, have they improved worthy of getting a quote on that too? and Anerican Standard? Thank you so much!

If anything, all brands are less well built that they use to be. Honestly, I'd probably stick with it and replace both when it dies on you. You see a lot of pre-emptive replacement recommendations but if you've done your homework, you should pretty much know what you want when the time comes. Also, now is not the best time ("shoulder season" or not) to buy much of anything with supply shortages and price gouging.

"We have the typical old Honeywell thermostat with a Goodman “The Dependable 92” which is 26 years old and still going."

I hope you have the condition of the heat exchanger inspected annually. They develop holes as the years pass and the result can be a serious health danger.

I had a new Rheem 90+ modulating gas furnace and A/C installed in 2006 - my house is 1225sqft. It replaced a 30 year old Chrysler Airtemp which was definitely oversized for the house, so I did get those big swings between too cold and too warm. Unfortunately I could not find a company from any brand that would do a load calc back then, so actually there was a fellow on this forum who did a rough one (based on the info that I could give) for me.

The units have been trouble free - I would recommend the brand, if it is available in your area (of course, Carrier and Trane are good; Lennox is still a local favorite (used to be made here) . My gas bill dropped so much that the gas company came out to inspect my meter 3 times!!! and the multi-stage function improved the comfort noticeably.

PS this particular furnace's stage function depended on the type of thermostat installed - modulating or 2-stage. ETA: I went with the 90+ efficiency rather than the highest offered for budget considerations at the time.

"My gas bill dropped so much that the gas company came out to inspect my meter 3 times!!! and the multi-stage function improved the comfort noticeably."

Cool story. My gas bill decreased when I put in smaller, more appropriately sized equipment in my primary house too. And I also got a few visits from the gas department of the local utility. They finally decided to approach me with a baloney "we replace gas meters periodically and we'd like to replace yours". That was fine with me, I said they could go ahead. No change, still lower bills than before.

"My gas bill dropped so much that the gas company came out to inspect my meter 3 times!!!

Don't get your hopes up. This is the exception rather than the rule!

That's a fair comment. I suspect in raee's case that her furnace was oversized enough, and if her name suggests a location in Ohio, that what was happening in cold weather was repeated short blasts of hot air in cycles that didn't sustain long enough to circulate and moderate temperatures in her home. A multiple speed or modulating system would allow for lower heat levels and longer fan operation to provide more consistent comfort with less fuel consumption .

Even in a milder climate that's what was happening in my home with the furnace in place when I bought it that was nearly 40% too big,

too big - too small. Modulating is the only real way to beat that problem... but the cost of modulation in a mild climate where Elmer lives? You're just doing it for the sizing problem and to say when my furnace runs it's always sized "Just Right".

My furnace was too big in a mild climate? Sure perfectly fine if you can find a smaller furnace, but unusual about this thread is they telling you that your choice selection for a smaller structure may not be found.... then we sit back and say but no one wants to do a calculation that will be right how much of the time? When the stars align and the sun emit's it's shallow heat in the winter season.

Then you may get someone to your house that will tell you due to climate change we need to up size your AC. Oh, too bad your furnace is too small to handle climate change now because you undersized it and it can not produce enough air to make your AC handle the brutal sun in the summer. What to do? Sizing. (This is a rerun from a recent previous thread)

It's been around since the day is long. Someone went to the papa bears bed tried to sleep, but it was too darn big. They managed to work their way around to the baby bears bed and it was just right.

Ok Kevin, so who was the guy in the white robe next to Elmer? (cool story bro) ha, ha, ha, ha.

"oo big - too small. Modulating is the only real way to beat that problem..."

Competent HVAC contractors who do load calculations, the modern tool and standard in the profession, have no problem determining proper sizing.

Re: kevin9408

Seems like there’s a really good post missing from this thread that should still be here.

IMPO

SR

Competent HVAC contractors who do load calculations, the modern tool and standard in the profession, have no problem determining proper sizing.

Do they figure in for Climate Change Elmer? (let the liberal Cali winds blow my man, we've only got 8 more years until the world ends according to some.)

@fsq4cw if you log out and then view the thread you will find more than one good post is missing including yours. This happens a lot to my posts and at times I've copied the shadow post only I can see and re post my words of wisdom just to piss of the flagging fools.

A new reason not to do a load calculation.

Elmer, my gas company used the "your meter is due to be changed out" line on each of the 3 (unscheduled, knock on the door) visits. Each time the tech finished by saying it was a mistake. On the last visit I told the tech to explain to the person in charge about the furnace upgrade.

Re: kevin9408

“@fsq4cw if you log out and then view the thread you will find more than one good post is missing including yours. This happens a lot to my posts and at times I've copied the shadow post only I can see and re post my words of wisdom just to piss of the flagging fools.”

I forgot about that. Interesting whose posts don’t get taken down.

“Competent HVAC contractors who do load calculations, the modern tool and standard in the profession, have no problem determining proper sizing.”

Aw yes, here we go again, the false Profit of the load calculation. Held to the highest esteem by those that demand it be free when there’s no oversight or accountability (unless it’s produced and signed by a professional engineer) for the fraud, laziness or just plain sloppiness by many who generate these reports that have the accuracy of a Dominion Voting Machine.

It’s probably worth what you paid! ‘Garbage in, garbage out’.

Please give me a shout when this gets taken down.

IMPO

SR

Load calcs are required in my state to obtain a permit for equipment replacement as well as of course for new or extensive remodel construction. I paid for comprehensive jobs on two different homes within a year - for both, the cost of the permit, load calc, and HERS testing (also required) were separately itemized in the bid. Not all the bids did - I think one would have been happy to skirt the rules and one I know had it built into the total. Professional time needs to be compensated, I never said it should be free.

Trained, experienced and conscientious tradesmen and pros are "regulated" and "guided" first and foremost by their own personal desires to do their jobs well using best practices. There's nothing new, exotic, or controversial about load calcs - they've long been accepted and they work. Top quality work leads to developing top reputations and new business referrals. Building codes and permits have little to do with much of their conduct.

You're the only trade person I've ever encountered who thinks there's one and only one solution that applies to every possible situation. My favorite response of yours was when you suggested someone install a ground source heat pump setup (that's your one and only one constant suggestion). When the person asking for comments told you his home was in a condominium building, you had no further comments.

Who on this forum has the expectation a load calculation be done for free?

You probably pass by certain contributors as I do but look at the comment immediately above mine just above yours.

He must work with a lot of incompetent and shady operators in the business (and there are plenty of them) because he seems not to have experience with contractors who conduct themselves competently and professionally and who provide their own oversight. Maybe he's of the first type ?

The use of load calculations, whether required or not, is small reason to think about when looking for an ethical, conscientious HVAC pro. But it's an important indication of competence. Most try to look for those characteristics when hiring any other tradesman, contractor or service provider.

"ground source heat pump setup"? Right, who wants the most cost effective and efficient form of heating and cooling available, absurd idea. Transferring heat into the 60 degree ground in a hot climate vs a 100 degree air temp makes about as much sense as pulling heat from the 50 degree ground in the north when you can do it from the -20 degree air temperature for three times the cost. Dah.

I'm a complex and calibrated load calculating machine and can just look at a house and in a few minutes compute the load. Highly sensitive and tuned nose hairs can detect Energy loss through a wall just by a sniff, with all data computed and hit the loads within .5% of the best Load calculator out there.

We who live in a real world and not through the comments on a forum have been gifted the expertise backed by experience. Some spend their time learning to write weird, others spend it honing a skill like a pro NASCAR driver making a move in a split second time frame. We have the sense, the moves and the skill to guess!

My last guess was last year when my nephew wanted to finish his basement. A quick glance at his house, windows, sniff and layout I came up with 80K BTU's. His present furnace was replaced before he bought the house with a 60K furnace. "well that explains why it runs all the time and some rooms don't get warm" he said. Someone with a load calculator using book smarts computed the wrong load I would say.

I checked with his two neighbors with the same floor plans, both 80K. The nephew had three bids and all said; yup your 60K is to small and figured up 80K, (and all said the uncle is a genius) We are trained to guess right and guess we do.

"Ethical, conscientious HVAC pro"? Most are but we need to earn a living, time is money with no time to mess around with know-it-all rude obnoxious snobby never satisfied homeowners wanting a gold ring and only paying for a bronze with a bounced check.

mike_home

21 hours ago

A new reason not to do a load calculation.

A new reason to "manipulate" the outcome. For every ying there is a yang, Mike.

Many on this board like to only look at a single thing--- when the whole picture is blurred lines.

A heat load for heating or cooling is an estimation based on how hot or cold someone estimates a certain climate to be. It's not always that hot or cold, that number is a moving target... none of you that profess the nature of this calc can yet see the forest from the trees on this subject.

The proper estimate is over sized 90% of the time. That is the *cost* of being correct. Let's not think about that.

Some of you are faintly starting to get it because of the "size you need" won't be available or the sizes in that realm are hard to come by. So under those conditions, throw out the calc and go with your gut? So if you throw out the calc numbers (or manipulate said numbers) what is the point in doing the actual calculation? To give to the so and so's who require it in a given area?

If you lack the experience --- what your gut tells you? Make it up. Anyone can be a HVAC genius, no schooling, just go on line pick a calc, pick a forum board, get a few basic ideas and demand that heat calc is a proper method to give you an exact number in a world of various numbers due to "what ever other reason" you know whether it be the mythical we're gonna die due to climate change, global warming, a new global ice age etc.

Live in a mild climate vs a cold climate vs a hot climate. The real world isn't a static number that never changes. But the myth is to deny all these disparities and say the calculation will make or break you. Certainly it can... both ways --- doing the calc or not doing the calc - That decision is where "EXPERIENCE" plays it's role.

Some one who actually does this for a living tells you (based from experience of actually doing this for me that is 28 years as of now) a heat load is not what it's cracked up to be when just relying on the calculaiton alone, it's an estimation - that is all. An educated guess, but only when base on that experience the tool is needed to come out of the tool bag. Then realizing the function in which it plays. (It's not an exact science... to get exact it now comes down to equipment selection -- modulation when it comes to gas furnaces and inverters when it comes to AC's & Heat Pumps.)

This type of HVAC equipment for some climates comes at a cost -- just to say the heating and or cooling system is properly sized every time the system turns on. The heat load calc will never get you there on it's own.

GIGO: Garbage in Garbage out - exactamundo.

It's an excuse not to do one / It's an excuse to manipulate it. (in case you missed it)

"GIGO: Garbage in Garbage out - exactamundo."

Garbage in = garbage out seems to be a theme with you, Ray. It seems you're dismissing the need for heating/cooling calculations in favor of an approach based on rules of thumb. That's not a well supported position in the industry.

Calculation of residential heating and cooling loads is based on the outdoor design temperatures for the particular local climate zone, the home's orientation, and the size and construction details of the home. The calculation of heating and cooling loads isn't altered by the selection of any particular equipment--indeed, it's the basis for selecting the equipment.

Employing a rule-of-thumb approach will get you into trouble when a home is constructed using different materials and methods than the homes that make up your experience database.

"The heat load calc will never get you there on it's own."

Of course not. Calculation of the heating and cooling loads is just the start. The order of operations is a manual J calculation (heating and cooling loads) followed by a manual S (equipment sizing) followed by manual T (air distribution) and manual D (duct design) calculations. It's not exact, but with reasonably accurate inputs, the calculations will yield superior results to any approach base on rules of thumb.

"The proper estimate is over sized 90% of the time. That is the *cost* of being correct. Let's not think about that."

To be sure, you're not thinking about it. The proper calculation (what you've termed an "estimate") isn't oversized 90% of the time, but the selected equipment could be. Whether the system is oversized depends on the temperature variation in the particular climate and the system's ability to adjust to that variation. For a climate like you would have on a Caribbean island, for example, the load would not vary much from day to day or month to month. It wouldn't be oversized 90% of the time.

For a climate like you would have on a Caribbean island, for example, the load would not vary much from day to day or month to month. It wouldn't be oversized 90% of the time.

Like I said, Garbage in, Garbage out. LOL.

The previous one I was merely agreeing with fsq4cw. We can't all live on the Caribbean Island. Fine dining and fine accommodations have their limitations Charles.

Ray,

The calculations you'd like to forgo are promoted by a trade group within your industry, the ACCA --the Air Conditioning Contractors of America. Houzzers will be better to follow the advice of a respected industry trade group like the ACCA than the musings of a math-challenged HVAC tech.

CR Homes, it's a waste of time.

@Elmer J Fudd, true that CR will never convince Ray. But his posts debunking Ray are a public service for those who come after. If we could downvote as well as upvote answers, inaccurate answers would have much less need of correction because all the downvotes would cause them to be ignored. Houzz could learn something from Stackoverflow in this regard.

Jennifer K, I agree in part. There are a few contributors with more hot air and baloney than true expertise and I guess they need to challenged when they speak up. In any occupation, the best are too busy to spend time unproductively. Which leaves those lower down the bell curve to do so.

Ray,

The calculations you'd like to forgo are promoted by a trade group within your industry, the ACCA --the Air Conditioning Contractors of America.

Charles as I have told you many times the calculations are a tool, you don't always need a hammer for everything and anything. If you don't understand that you should put the hammer down. You even used the word "trade" and still didn't make the connection about "selling to be sold"?

Let's dig deeper. What is ACCA, let's look and see what they really are... more or less another flashy thing used to sell misinformed people because you have some trade group accronym next to your company name to make you sound soo official? Some people are easily duped.

Sounds so - so good right? That doesn't make it so though.

If I could be a super hero, I'd like to be able to defeat my enemies with IRONY.

(Click to enlarge)

If you want a good solid HVAC repair person who isn't out to sell you for the sake of "SELLING" you.

I fix Air Conditioners for your home. You will always need a good HVAC contractor that is licensed TACLB28416E --- I will lay out all your options, I will give you ways to minimize your transition to whatever the new refrigerants turn out to be. I can extend the life of your current AC system. (any brand)

ACCA won't do none of that for you. (Right tool, right job.)

I service the Katy, Texas area.

Jennifer K and CR Homes are right on.

The real irony is that someone who tries to promote his own capabilities scoffs at and says he rarely uses a tool that's a best practice and also a standard industry practice. It's there for all to see.