13 SEER Goodman

[jcswaim]

Hello,
Glad I found this site. I am having a 4 ton 13 seer goodman electric heat and a/c installed tomorrow. The installation includes a new line set, disconnect, and the addtion of one return. I am paying $x,000 for this. Never heard of Goodman until this year and have been comparing them to the others, to me it looks like a good sturdy frame especially compared to the Lennox. I have been doing a little reading on the parts and it appears alot of the companies use the same parts. Anyway, I have a 1800 sq. foot home, built in 1984, it has lot's of windows and I am in Fort Worth, Texas. I am just wondering first off if I am getting a good deal price wise and if this is the right size system for the house. My current system is 21 year old 3 ton. Thanks for the help in advance.

Jason

[Edited by BaldLoonie on 10-11-2005 at 09:06 PM]

[amd]

No pricing questions allowed.

Nobody can tell you without actually looking at your home, but was the previous unit insufficient? Why 3 ton to 4 ton?

[jcswaim]

Well,
I am not sure. I do know what I have had a $500 heating bill in the winter. My current unit is a Sun Dial that does not have a heat pump. One contractor told me I needed a 3.5 ton and the other actually took measurements and told me that I need a 4 ton. Oh yeah, I live in a two story home.

[jcswaim]

Guess it might help to tell you that only two people live here and we do not have any electricity that runs such as a swimming pool. I have electricity bills in the winter hit 500 and summer can go as low as $120. I spend $2700 on electricity last year.

[RoBoTeq]

Is this an electric furnace with a straight cooling condenser or is this a heat pump?

[jcswaim]

What I have now is a Sundial without a heat pump I am having a Goodman heat pump installed.

[mark beiser]

If they did a load calc accuratly you should be ok with the size of the system. If the contractor that called for a 3.5 ton system was using a different brand, the "3.5 ton" system he proposed may actually have similar capacity to the Goodman "4 ton" system you are purchasing. It all depends on the equipment matchups from one manufacturer to the next, and how thier equipment performs in our summer design conditions, wich are substantially more challenging than the conditions used for the ARI ratings. As long as the contractor knows how to apply the equipment, it is fine.

Nobody can tell for sure over the internet if your supply ductwork is ok, but I would find it highly suspicious if they are not making any changes.
If your ductwork is the old gray vinal, all of it that is accessable needs to be replaced.
If your duct system is metal, I can virtually guarantee you that it is leaking an unacceptable amount of supply air. The vast majority of residential metal duct systems I have seen in the DFW area leak very badly. Usually they were never designed very well, or are inadiquate for new equipment, especially when larger equipment is being installed.

Assuming you get a quality installation, you will enjoy the drasticly lower heating bills you get with your new heat pump.
Your old electric resistance heating furnace is a close 2nd to the most expensive form of heat there is. It is just slightly less expensive than actually burning money for the BTU content.

[mark beiser]

Mind if I ask what part of Fort Worth?

[jcswaim]

I live in West Fort Worth. Also, the duct work is the flex duct which will need to be replaced eventually. I am going to do that myself because I only got approved for 5,000. The guy told me that he will show me how to replace it and even help me for shiner bock. The guy is actually looking for a home in my neighborhood. The company is Stark Air. They are a seemingly good company which has good ratings by the BBB. I am going to replace it with R8. I have been told by several contractors that my electric bill should be cut by 40 to 50 percent.

[mark beiser]

Heh, at least get them to design the duct system for you rather than just sticking the same size ducts back in the way they were origonally installed.
I can probably guess who the origonal installation company was when the house was built, and I can confidently tell you that if you go back with the same size ductwork routed the same way, the system will not perform anywhere near its peak. The origonal ductwork was probably barely adiquate for the origonal 3 ton system, those Sun Dial electric furnaces had stronger blowers than a lot of the equipment today though.

Among contractors of thier size, you picked one of the better ones that service your area, or at least have been in the past, they sure have perty trucks.

[Edited by mark beiser on 10-11-2005 at 11:44 PM]

[mark beiser]

oops

[jcswaim]

Thank you for your advise. As for the duct work, what he suggests is to add some more returns and keep the rest the same. They do suggest upgrading to R8. Does that make sense?

[mark beiser]

Originally posted by jcswaim
Thank you for your advise. As for the duct work, what he suggests is to add some more returns and keep the rest the same. They do suggest upgrading to R8. Does that make sense?

No way for me to know for sure without looking at the job(we don't service your area), but generally, it doesn't make sense to make a jump in capacity, especially upgrading to a heat pump, without having to make significant changes to the sizing of the supply ducts.

Not that it doesn't happen many times every day, but it almost always ends up being somewhat less than ideal, wich is about normal for this area.

[dash]

Originally posted by jcswaim
Thank you for your advise. As for the duct work, what he suggests is to add some more returns and keep the rest the same. They do suggest upgrading to R8. Does that make sense?

Mark is trying to be nice.


It's very unlikely your new system will perform correctly on the old duct system,due to increasing the size,which likely isn't needed .


Read some posts here and think about it before you spend the money.

[glitho]

Goodman / Amana are the only mnufactures that i know of that offer lifetime warranty on their compressor on 13 seer and above

[RoBoTeq]

Hey Mark! you want to back up your claim that a Goodman 4 ton is the same capacity as another brands 3.5 ton? This crap you are spewing is getting old. There is one 5 ton system that you have a ligitimate gripe about, and that is covered by a heftier 5 ton that is available.

Your broken record chanting of innacurate information really makes you sound petty and not very well informed.

[inturmoil]

I'd get a heat pump if I were you.
My opinion after 16 years in the trade.

[mark beiser]

Originally posted by RoBoTeq
Hey Mark! you want to back up your claim that a Goodman 4 ton is the same capacity as another brands 3.5 ton? This crap you are spewing is getting old. There is one 5 ton system that you have a ligitimate gripe about, and that is covered by a heftier 5 ton that is available.

Your broken record chanting of innacurate information really makes you sound petty and not very well informed.

Robo, carefully reread my reply to his post. You will find that I said "similar" capacity. I wasn't bashing Goodman at all, I thought I was clear that it all depends on the equipment matchups.

Since you wanted to go down this road with me, here you go.

I actually picked the better performing of the 2 "13 SEER heat pumps" listed on Goodman's web site.


I won't have the data for the new Trane XR13 and XR14 for a couple of weeks, here are some of a 3.5 ton Trane XL14i heat pump with varrious air handlers.


When you toss in the fact that the OP's new "4 ton" system is being installed on a duct system that was on a 3 ton system, and that the origonal duct systems in his part of town were generally not very good for the size of equipment that was there to begin with, those numbers will certainly be significantly lower.
There was already a long thread in the pro forum illistrating the differences in the blower performance, so I'll leave that alone.

The couple of times I have gotten hold of the performance data for more severe conditions than the ARI rating conditions, the performance of the Goodman system dropped off much faster than the system I was compairing it too.

It isn't very often that I will say much negative about a manufacturer, and I certainly don't bash. When I do have something bad to say, you can bet I can back it up.

If you read my "negative" posts, you will see that most of my beef is with idiot contractors that don't match the equipment properly.

Just for the record, Trane makes some whole product lines that we don't sell because of performance and quality issues with those products.

[Edited by mark beiser on 10-14-2005 at 01:56 AM]

[mark beiser]

When you get away from heat pumps to straight AC, many of the >130 equipment combinations with the "3.5 ton" Trane XL14i have higher total and sensable capacity, with similar or better senable/latent ratios than ANY of the equipment matchups that Goodman has listed for thier "4 ton" 14 SEER condensor.

Not bashing, just a statement of fact that illistrates the importance of Manual S type equipment selection.

Ok, I will bash one thing about Goodman equipment. Thier 5 ton systems, all of them on thier web site, are weak. Goodman still does not have one single equipment matchup that will handle a >39k BTUh cooling load, wich is a fairly common requirement in my area. Lots homes around here with >39k BTUH load at our design conditions that are served by a single system, and a lot of homeowners that don't want to go with 2 systems.
Trane has several matchups that will handle >39k BTUH with a single system at our design conditions, and still have a great sensable/latent ratio.

[Edited by mark beiser on 10-14-2005 at 02:25 AM]

[mark beiser]

Here is the cheeper 4 ton Goodman 13 SEER HP.


And the 3.5 ton Trane XR12.



Wish I had the data for the new XR13 and XR14 products, but gota wait a couple more weeks yet.