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Posted by John on July 30, 2006, 7:33 pm
> Hi,
>
> The heating/air conditioner system in our new house is about to be
> installed in the next few days. The heating/air conditioner tech
> mentioned that the price of our home includes a Maytag 100k BTU furnace
> and a 14 SEER air conditioner (forget the brand), both with 10/10
> warranties.
>
> a) Is the Maytag 100k BTU, 92.5% AFUE efficiency furnace the right
> capacity furnace for our house? Our house is a three level (Two
> finished floors and unfinished walk-out basement) 3300 sqft house in
> Minnesota.
Sounds about right, it's ok to oversize a condensing furnace actually runs
more efficiently.
>
> b) As I understand from my builder and heating technician, they will
> also be extending 6 heating ducts to the basement floor to provide heat
> runs as an alternative way to heat the basement instead of spending
> extra money on heated floors. How well does this method of heating the
> basement compare to the traditional heated floors?
Probably much less expensive
>
> The heating tech suggested adding a couple items:
> c) A variable speed motor - He mentioned this is an ECM motor (invented
> by GE when they owned Trane) and said it would be lot more quiet
> compared to the standard A/C motor, especially in the "continuous mode"
> and more efficient. He said they already build the ducts in the house
> big enough to make the most efficient use of the ECM motor. I did some
> research on the internet, including this site, and his claims about the
> advantages of ECM motor seem to be valid. A lot of other heating techs
> on the net seem to highly recommend these, especially for new and
> replacement furnaces. I wonder, however, what would be a reasonable
> upgrade price for this motor for our furnace? I've seen prices for
> new/replacement ECM motors on the Internet of ~$500. The furnace tech
> has quoted us additional cost $550 to go with the ECM motor - however,
> if we are "exchanging" the regular A/C motor with the D/C motor,
> shouldn't we be getting some credit for the cost of the A/C motor? Does
> the upgrade price for the ECM motor seem reasonable?
No, the "credit" is included already. Yes, mine was $650. If electricity is
cheap ECM benefits are only noise and more even temps
> d) Finally, the heating tech suggested putting a Trion Media filter
> system with 5" media filter instead of the standard 1" filter system
> normally installed by the builder. He said these are quite cost
> effective compared to the standard filter system and we would recover
> the additional cost ($295) in a few years by the savings in the
> replacement filter costs. Does the upgrade price for the filter system
> seem reasonable?
>
No, unless you have allergy problems I would go with a standard washable
filter that costs about $5 and last 2 years.
Try posting in http://www.hvac-talk.com/vbb/forumdisplay.php?forumid=1 they
are much more helpful in there.
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