Either way whether you go with the low bidder or the high bidder on a job you are probably going to be spending quite a bit of money on a furnace, boiler, or package unit. Mechanical work is not cheap and we all want the most for our money. First we need to decide what we want to get out of the thing we are buying. We can get a wood stove to heat our houses, however, they are not as safe and do not provide the same level of comfort.
What made me want to revisit this? I ran a call the other day where an older couple had an 8 year old furnace that was not working properly. When I arrived I turned the furnace on and it received a call for heat. When it came on the issue was not immediately visible. After the blower fan came on the problem made itself quite visible. The first tube in the heat exchanger was cracked. The flame was being blown back out of the front of the tube on the heat exchanger. The company that manufactured this furnace offers a lifetime warranty on the heat exchanger to the original owner. So, why did it fail after only 8 years. After asking some questions I had found out that a duct cleaning company that is fairly reputable came out and told her that the duct work in the house was in pretty rough shape. Odds are this issue was not caught 8 years ago, but was an issue which caused their previous furnace to fail.
The return duct work was in the cement slab under the house. Not really able to make easy or inexpensive repairs to the return duct work.
After I replaced the heat exchanger under warranty I started to investigate. I found that the gas pressure was within manufacturer specifications. Too much gas pressure could result in turning the furnace burners into torches that would melt holes in the heat exchanger. I moved on. I started looking at airflow due to the customer's answers to my questions. The temperature difference in the air coming back to the furnace and the air leaving the furnace was supposed to be 30 to 60°F. The temperature rise was 80°F. I could not believe that this was overlooked.
Someone had not looked for the issue that caused the previous furnace to fail. The house is older and the customer said that the ducts were in too rough of shape to have a cleaning done. I found out that they used clay tiles in some of these houses as duct work and that these clay tiles would fail over time. They would fail by cracking and collapsing in on themselves. That would definitely cause this issue.
The cracked heat exchanger could have been prevented had this issue been caught early and corrected. However, that would have increased the price of the furnace install. We really need to look at the whole picture and not just the bottom line. We have all heard about the people who have gotten burned by going with the lowest bidder, but what about the people in the middle? I know that the better contractors spend quite a bit more time quoting the job and make sure the customer will be happy with it. Not only should a customer be comfortable in their home, they should know that everything was done to preserve the longevity of the product they purchased.
