Dear friends,

Ive narrowed my quotes down to two possibilities: Im considering either a Bryant 312AAV two stage – two speed blower OR an AMANA AMV8 two stage with variable speed blower – downflow furnaces. The AMANA seems to have a better build quality with the Stainless Steel heat exchanger & Variable speed blower & a better warranty. Both are 80% furnaces. What appeals to me about the Bryant is that I have been told it is very quiet – more quiet than most other furnaces in this class. My interest in “quiet” is that the furnace in my home shares a wall with my living room – and main return air grill is quit literally just on the other side of the wall from the furnace- it is noticeably loud in the living room when the furnace is running. Ive also been told the Bryant has a more sophisticated control of the blower with its adaptive something feature – IE microprocessor. Finally, my other issue concerns the AMANA’s variable speed – I realize it is a comfort issue – but is it not true that the “variable speed” part concerns just ramping from one of two speeds to the other in the heating mode ? If that is the case, who cares about all the cost, complexity & potential reliability of a sophisticated system like that just to avoid stepping from one speed to the next ? Are all these variable speed motor controllers & motors made by the same supplier in these variable speed furnaces. Any idea as to the cost of a dead motor controller OR variable speed motor? Im assuming the motors are induction motors – If they are NOT induction motors – then you have commutated DC motors with the limited life of commutator brushes. I would think the relatively new introduction of these sophisticated motor controllers into these new furnaces – there would be little reliability data and therefore the jury is still out on these.

Thank you in advance – Regards