It appears you are asking for technical advice in the open AOP forum.

Site rules prohibit giving technical advice here.

An open limit can be caused by a blocked air filter.

 

It appears you are asking for technical advice in the open AOP forum.

No, actually not. I figured I would get either "that thermostat is a P.O.S. have your HVAC tech get a real one" or I would get "That thermostat is fine your furnace is a P.O.S. they all do that get a new furnace" Well I can use Google and I already know what you all think of the Plus 90 furnaces but Honeywell is SUPPOSED to be a decent thermostat manufacturer or are they now producing garbage too? It's going to be either 1 of 3 things folks - a dying thermostat or a dying control system (board or sensor or something else) in the furnace or the usual SNAFU that is the Bryant 90 Plus. (in my opinion a furnace control that cannot recover after a plugged filter is changed and the furnace rebooted is a poor design - and when you look up the definition of poor furnace design you get the Plus 90 - I already know that) All I'm looking for is for is a pointer to one of those things. In summary - is this normal? Or is it a mismatch between the thermostat and the furnace? Or are my control circuits headed South. I can't ask the HVAC installer he's long gone. And every other HVAC business in the city is completely uninterested in doing any real troubleshooting of a system that is a) not one they sell and b) older than 5 years old. I've already tried going down that road here.

One of these days, yes, the furnace heat exchanger will indeed rust out or plug up and that will be the end of it. And I guarantee if I'm involved in purchasing the replacement i will never go within a mile of Bryant, Carrier, Payne or any furnace maker having anything at all to do with that group. That day has not arrived yet for me. But let me point out that back in the early 2000's we didn't have these online forums to do research before making buys. Ultimately, why does this forum even have public guest access? To assist end user consumers - the ones with the money - to steer them towards the companies who make quality product and stand behind their mistakes and away from the ones who make garbage and setup fake "warranties" that contribute nothing of value. Like United Technology with their "oh so sorry we used old beer cans to make the exchanger in your furnace here's a sop that doesn't help you" warranty. My posting here - even if you decide "that's too educated for me to respond to" is a contribution to this. If you want to ignore it - no problem. Doesn't bother me. Just consider whether ignoring it is helping cover up a mistake a manufacturer would prefer everyone forget about so they can push out more trash and ask yourself who are you really helping by not answering? Yourself, a fellow HVAC tech somewhere - or a manufacturer who doesn't deserve it.

 

Come on here snarky right off the bat, disregard the DIY rules, then ask for help...Good luck with you & your Bit Coin.

 

Can you narrow your rant down to one point? Are you pissed at Honeywell, Bryant, Google, hvac-talk, or me?

 

Or Me!

 

Heh heh. No I'm not POed at either of you I'm trying to get you to think just a bit. But if the ground ain't fertile the seeds won't sprout so I won't spend anymore time on that since the ground definitely ain't fertile here. If you want to choose to not understand that's your business I put the truth out in the open where it belongs.


So getting back to it here's what I've come up with after puzzling about this, take it or leave it, use it as you see fit.

The problem with this system is that the Honeywell thermostat isn't a P.O.S. The problem isn't exactly the Plus 90 either. The issue is the combination of the two.

The Plus 90 was designed to drop in place of an old-school furnace which used the historic 4 wire thermostat interface that worked perfectly fine when all a hot/cold thermostat was was a couple of mercury tubes on a couple of bimetal strips. This was in the late 90's when the fancy programmable electronic thermostats were just beginning to gain awareness with the consumers. When I bought my Plus 90 I didn't buy the A/C (I couldn't afford it at the time) but I planned on buying it the following year (which I did) so I had him rough in the ductwork for the evap. At that time the thermostat on the wall was a heating only thermostat with a 2 wire RW interface which the HVAC tech left in place.

I replaced that thermostat with some cheap piece o Chinese trash which ran off battery power later that year. (Hey, I don't like waking up to a cold house) The following year, when I had the tech out again to add in the A/C he pulled out the antique thermostat wiring and ran the more traditional RhWYRc 4 wire line to the furnace but he left the cheap piece of junk thermostat in place.

Well a couple years later that thermostat finally died and I bought the Honeywell. I specifically looked for a model that would run off scavenged power since I didn't care for changing batteries and the Honeywell does that. (the Honeywell is, in fact, a 4 wire thermostat and only -has- 4 connections going into the thermostat body) However, the thing I didn't think about or realize when I put it in is that when the Plus 90 has a limit switch of any kind kick over, the control board locks out the thermostat. The 17 volts I was seeing was just leakage voltage, not enough to power anything. Since the Honewell needs power to display a readout - it goes offline also. However, the Honeywell designers allowed for this since the thermostat has a little bit of nonvolatile onboard memory storage that it can store the programming. The few other times I've seen the thermostat readout disappear were also probably times that a limit sensor kicked off - most likely whatever is sensing the flow through the filter. One of the drawbacks of running the fan 24x7 is that the furnace filters clog up a heck of a lot faster.

The more significant thing is why didn't the furnace come back online when the filter was replaced and it was power cycled but i think I have an answer for that one too. What is is, is that the Plus is a victim of horrendous cost cutting and one of the ways they cut costs was to use a very simple processor and programming for it. They didn't break out separate blink codes for different sensors they just lumped them all under code 33. So no matter what limit sensor or switch kicks off it's going to generate a code 33. With newer furnaces it appears that the defacto standard has been to assign code 33 to the flame out sensor and other codes to other limits and sensors. Most of the documentation out there including that on Carriers sites is for newer furnaces and not applicable. And along with that the control board basically does the same thing for any sensor fault - it waits some predetermined amount of time and then tests the sensors again. Power cycling the furnace does not affect this timer on the board it's going to wait it's test interval - whatever that is - no matter what you do. That's very good if your some ignorant end user who is sitting there pushing the rest button on the flame out sensor to get their furnace going. But it's stupid if your waiting 30 minutes or whatever to check and see if the air filter was cleaned. But, when your an accountant saving a nickle on a furnace design you don't give a tinker's dam about clarity to the end user, and your going to assume the service guys are going to be familiar with your tricks.

 

WOW! What a rant.

First off, there is nothing wrong with and of the Carrier product line. The only difference between each manufacturer is the color of the box. Also there have been some improvements over the years to make troubleshooting easier.

Now as far as your Error 33, many of the sensors are in series and it is just an matter of knowing how to test each on efficiently to find which one is tripped. Most likely it was the high limit switch. That will trip at a certain temperature and will not allow the furnace to run until it cools down to a certain temperature. On the newer ones the fan will run to accelerate the cool down time. Just because you changed the filter it did not cool down enough yet to run safely.

Now why this blanked out the thermostat, I am not sure. I am not too familiar with your vintage furnace. But it may be something internal or the installers wiring that blanks it out to let you know there is a problem. Either way, keep your filter clean and the problem will not haunt you again.

Your frustration sounds more like your lack of understanding of how your equipment needs to work to be safe.

There is anything wrong with the design of this product or any other brand. Safety is paramount when it comes to gas furnaces.

 

Well, my frustration comes because I'm the lucky owner of one of the Carrier furnaces that is covered by the class action lawsuit where Carrier essentially admitted they screwed up by using a coated steel secondary heat exchanger instead of a stainless steel one. So no, I do not believe that there is "nothing wrong" with this product. Carrier should have NOT had to be forced into making things right by a lawsuit - once they realized the coated steel secondary exchangers were garbage and decided to stop using them on their products, they should have gone back to their customers, apologized for their cost cutting that compromised their product, and offered to make it right. Please don't defend their behavior it's not excusable in any way, shape or form.

Now as to my error 33 - yes I'm aware they saved a few cents by wiring some of these sensors in series instead of home running each of them back to the control board. That is why the control board on mine uses code 33 as a general catch-all code. I'm not surprised the newer models don't do this anymore and as a result the control board can be more specific on which one is tripping.

On this one the fan does run to cool on a limit trip. It had been running the blower fan for around 3 hours before I looked at it. I'm going to guess that the control board got into a "firmware wedge" of some kind (programmatically it's a tight loop in the software) and the first time I power cycled the furnace and it rebooted, the control board started working normally but I just needed to be more patient and give it time to reset the leftover limit trip.

But, I freely admit this is speculation on what really happened. The furnace has been fine since so unless it acts up again, this is all in the realm of guessing. There is no way to know how a software system like the control board is going to function in a border case like this.

And speaking of safety, let's talk about what happens when the day does come that the secondary exchanger rusts through and I start getting the flue gas from the burn leaking into the main airflow. Since as you say I lack understanding of how my equipment needs to work to be safe. /snark

 

Control board could have a bug in it that's causing your issue, but hard to tell from here. The thermostat doesn't sound likely since you confirmed you didn't have proper voltage.

 

Your thermostat sounds like a retail model that is marginally better than the other junk sold there.

A professional thermostat will use furnace voltage to power it and may use batteries for keeping programmed info.

Yes it could be a combination.

I would say your furnace IS the main issue.

A plugged filter should not cause a need for furnace power cycling. It's related safety should be an automatic reset, as described in previous post.

Other safeties MAY require power cycling. This is to inform you that it needs professional attention.

Your area may actually as you describe, but we have no control over that.
This site has policies in place that prohibit us from providing the information you seek.

 

Your thermostat sounds like a retail model that is marginally better than the other junk sold there.

A professional thermostat will use furnace voltage to power it and may use batteries for keeping programmed info.

My thermostat is the Honeywell CT2700 and yes it uses furnace voltage. It lacks batteries that will run the thermostat if power is lost. Better Honeywell programmable thermostats of that era that were apparently only sold through distributors like the Honeywell TH4110D have almost an identical day/night configuration interface but they do have the batteries that run the thermostat if power is lost. So yes that was the difference between a retail model and a pro model. The pro model would have kept on displaying something even though the furnace had gone incommunicado.

Nowadays though thermostats like the Nest seem to have blown the thermostat market to pieces and seem to have lit a fire under companies like Honeywell to actually come out with some advanced thermostats. So I would expect that you will be seeing more of these kinds of oddities with thermostats. As the saying goes the more they overengineer the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the drain.

 

Not sure on your furnace but I believe that if a limit trips it kills power to the board which would take power away from your thermostat. The new snap disc type limits do not always close once they cool down. This may or may not be what happened. Generally on older Bryant furnaces if a limit opens the fan will run.

 

Sounds like the OP has been doing all the work himself and cant get the Carrier replacement solution!

 

First I want to address heat exchanger issues:
1.)The heat exchanger program from Carrier was a settlement, not ordered by courts. If you know anything about litigious law, this was done as a act of good will and because the issue is no more prevelant than any other heat exchanger design so it was more cost effective to extend the warranty. They could have fought the lawsuit and wion but a dragged out court battle, the only winners are the lawyers.
2.) The main issue with this design or any design is lack of proper maintenance and installation, acidic byproducts of the flue gas will eat thru any heat exchanger design, including the type of stainless steel used in furnaces.
3.) The stainless steel used in furnaces is not like your stainless steel sink or fridge, it has a higher amount of iron in it as high grade stainless becomes brittle under constant heat and coil down cycles, check it with a magnet- magnet will stick.
4.) I can think of atleast 3 other manufacturers that had worse issues with their heat exchanger design and never even thought of issuing a service bulletin.
5.) I am not saying they did not have thier issues with this design and had years that the coating was not applied properly. Just as a note, this design was used since the 1980’s by Carrier, which is longer than most manufacturers used thier design and I image if you looked at the percentage of failures of the millions sold of this design, the failure rate is about the same as any manufacturer.
6.) I have seen all manufaturers heat exchanger fail from manufacturer defects and mostly from lack of proper maintenance.
7.) Part of the proper startup and yearly maintenance is a combustion analysis, this will show the condition of your heat exchanger once all other proper setup/maintenance procedures have already been verified.
8.) Drain traps clog in all heat exchanger designs, they don’t if proper procedures are followed during yearly seasonal inspections.
9.) Commercial hvac techs may or may not be familiar with a residential system, I would recommend finding a residential company that is trusted by your friends and family.
10.) Again, by the way you stare the techs don’t want to work on the system and how you have been servicing the system, I can tell the proper maintenance has not been performed.
11.) If a combustion analysis is performed after all other setup/maintenance procedures are followed and it is found out of parameters set by the manufacturer, a carrier dealer can process the claim for you.
12.) Rust thru or leaking secondary is the final point of the failure but can be found before that point by a quality residential company.

I worked on over 100 carriers of that design this year and found one with a failing secondary that was 19 years old(good life). I have also worked on about 20 Tranes and found 2 with cracked secondaries both between 8-12 years old. Does that mean Trane has a worse problem than Carrier?
No all manufacturers can have a failed heat exchanger, average system life is 15-20 years, I can say I have Carrier, Trane, etc brands that are over 30 years old but that is not the norm, and those systems had regular seasonal inspections yearly which promotes longer life.

Power stealing thermostats have caused issues with all manufacturers as have nest, hunter, lux and other DIY thermostats. Home improvement store thermostats are made at a disposable lowest cost point as most are installed improperly and the manufacturer wants to still make money on all those returned units.

All brands made today must be installed and properly setup/maintained to get a long life. So the company you chose to install and maintain the system is the most important. They must have a high level of understanding the product they sell and care enough to properly setup and maintain your system.

J

 

First I want to address heat exchanger issues:
1.)The heat exchanger program from Carrier was a settlement, not ordered by courts. If you know anything about litigious law, this was done as a act of good will and because the issue is no more prevelant than any other heat exchanger design so it was more cost effective to extend the warranty. They could have fought the lawsuit and wion but a dragged out court battle, the only winners are the lawyers.


I worked on over 100 carriers of that design this year and found one with a failing secondary that was 19 years old(good life). I have also worked on about 20 Tranes and found 2 with cracked secondaries both between 8-12 years old. Does that mean Trane has a worse problem than Carrier?
No all manufacturers can have a failed heat exchanger, average system life is 15-20 years, I can say I have Carrier, Trane, etc brands that are over 30 years old but that is not the norm, and those systems had regular seasonal inspections yearly which promotes longer life.

Power stealing thermostats have caused issues with all manufacturers as have nest, hunter, lux and other DIY thermostats. Home improvement store thermostats are made at a disposable lowest cost point as most are installed improperly and the manufacturer wants to still make money on all those returned units.


J

Carrier settled because they would have lost not because they would have won. It was simply cheaper to settle than to continue fighting a battle you were going to lose in the end. And they stopped using the steel and started using the stainless, which is absolute proof they knew they screwed up. The stainless exchangers are more expensive than the steel coated so the only way to force them (and others) to use the better exchanger is to institute the threat of litigation which would be more expensive than paying the extra money for stainless.

I know stainless rusts also in an acidic environment I also own a home a block from the beach. The key is keeping things open so the acidic water doesn't sit around inside the exchanger. But ultimately this kind of design must be considered as though the secondary exchanger is a consumable item.

You wouldn't throw out a water heater just because it's anode rod disintegrated you would replace the anode rod. The furnace companies need to design products so the secondary exchanger is easy to replace not buried under a ton of stuff in the furnace. The automakers had to do this with spark plugs and other engine items that are consumable. This isn't rocket science.

I don't know that I'd call the CT80 or the wifi Honeywell's DIY thermostats, they price out at from $150-$300 or even higher and are special order only at the home improvement big box retailers. Perhaps the low end $60 wifi Honeywells or the $30 non-wifi "round" thermostats that are actually hanging on the card at the big box stores are DIY thermostats.

19-20 years may be "average" for the 90's but the less efficient furnaces, 80's and lower, seem to last longer than the 90's My parents had an 80 gas that lasted 40 years, I had one that lasted 40 years, my grandparents had one that lasted 40 years, and so on. Yes i know the furnace makers really don't want people waiting that long to buy a new furnace - neither do the HVAC dealers, basically nobody in the HVAC industry wants that. But in the time that you go through a $2500 80% furnace you have to buy 2 90% furnaces at $5k each - unless you are saving $375 a year in fuel costs the 90's are simply more expensive and that's not including the servicing costs. And with an efficiency of only 10% difference that means you would have to be buying around $3k worth of natural gas a year??? You would have to run the furnace on heat 24x7 I think for half the year to do that. Who does that?

The home we bought out at the beach has a Lennox all electric furnace installed in 1973 that is original, still working that's a 45 year old furnace. It is powered by an electric company that is probably using a CCGT gas turbine that's 60% efficient with power distribution losses of maybe 10%. So it's a far less efficient converter of natural gas to home heat than piping the gas to the home and burning it there. But, the capital cost of building the ONE power plant is spread over hundreds of thousands of ratepayers so ultimately even though it's less efficient it's cheaper in total.
You can argue it's "harming the environment" but that is ignoring the fact that no replacement over all that time means nothing was manufactured to replace it so that saves the environment that impact.

 

Give ya a couple of points, the new line of carrier furnaces were being tested long before the lawsuit on the old design. The old secondary limited the amount they could shrink their furnace height.

The secondary design they had cost more to produce due to the process that dipping the secondary in a proprietary coating. Same thing happened when carrier started to tin plate their evaporators before they switch to aluminum. The tin plating cost them more than the switch to aluminum but they wanted to offer a alternative to the standard copper coil till the aluminum coil was tested. As stated they used the same design since the 1980’s, they switched to the new design not because of warranty or lawsuit issues but because trying to shrink the furnace size down. I still service several carrier sx model furnaces that work great. But keep believing what you want to.

Also if you believe every lawsuit is settled because someone was going to lose, you would be wrong. We live in a litigious society and plea deals and settlements happen not always because of guilt or negligence but mainly due to cost and public opinion.

Also, I have not seen any average life differences between 80% and 90% units, the both have almost the same parts except the secondary heat exchanger and some more minor parts. If both systems are abused and not maintained or setup properly, I could see them both die an early life. As I could see them both live a good life span with proper setup and maintained.

Now if you are talking about the old 70% or less units, I have seen some 70% that had major heat exchanger issues. Now the even less effiecient unit, some were made with 1/4” steel and they would stop a bullet and not even phase them. A local company to me was Williamson, great systems and built for a lifetime. And there were others also that were built like tanks. But where are they now, sadly they are gone and bankrupt. You can build yourself out of your market. Most of the old dinosaurs are replaced or will be if a part cannot be found any longer once a part fails. I still have a couple I keep running for customers but you should see their heating bills, $400 plus a month for a house that should be about $100-150 a month. But if they want to fix it and I can find a part for it, it is their decision.

As far as an all electric furnace there is not much to go wrong and near a beach, it probably does not get very cold to have many hours on it. Also an all electric furnace is 100% efficient, only the blower motor would save some if replaced with a ecm. So you can’t save more than the 0% loss of your current heating except minorly on the blower usage.

On the subject of the home improvement stores thermostat, believe what you want, they are cheap knock offs of the supply house thermostats built for cost only for the diyer to burn up and return.

Harm the environment all you want, I don’t sell on environment saving. I present options and let my customer chose to keep or replace. It is a job that pays either way.

All items in your home are eventually a consumable item, be it your roof, your windows, your carpet, your water heater, your pipes. They all wear out and need to be replaced at some point, now you can patch your carpeting but eventually it will look like a patchwork blanket.

The comment about cars, I take it you have not looked at new car designs, he’ll the even hide the battery, under the back seat, behind a fender. They are starting to ramp up the take it to a shop design.

If you think you could make a furnace better than the designs available today at a cost people will buy, then design away. If it is a superior design at a competitive cost, I will be your first dealer, sign me up.

Merry Christmas to you and your family.

J

 

you should see their heating bills, $400 plus a month for a house that should be about $100-150 a month. But if they want to fix it and I can find a part for it, it is their decision.

As far as an all electric furnace there is not much to go wrong and near a beach, it probably does not get very cold to have many hours on it. Also an all electric furnace is 100% efficient, only the blower motor would save some if replaced with a ecm. So you can’t save more than the 0% loss of your current heating except minorly on the blower usage.

On the subject of the home improvement stores thermostat, believe what you want, they are cheap knock offs of the supply house thermostats built for cost only for the diyer to burn up and return.

Harm the environment all you want, I don’t sell on environment saving. I present options and let my customer chose to keep or replace. It is a job that pays either way.

All items in your home are eventually a consumable item, be it your roof, your windows, your carpet, your water heater, your pipes. They all wear out and need to be replaced at some point, now you can patch your carpeting but eventually it will look like a patchwork blanket.

The comment about cars, I take it you have not looked at new car designs, he’ll the even hide the battery, under the back seat, behind a fender. They are starting to ramp up the take it to a shop design.


Merry Christmas to you and your family.

J

The issue isn't that everything is consumable the issue is the length of time it's consumed. How short of a time is the residential market going to accept for furnace replacement? Maybe in another decade they will be pushing out product that is consumed in 10 years and manage to browbeat the market into accepting that, too? You can always justify building something cheaper and crummier if all you focus on is the initial capital expense.

Furnaces like your tank example aren't made anymore because the dealer network that sells furnaces - that's you guys - don't discuss T.C.O. with customers and most customers are not informed about furnaces. They didn't know there were options. Sure as heck when I bought mine back in 1999 or '98 if the installer had told me "this one you will be lucky to have it last 20 years but if I charge you an extra 20% I can sell you one that will last 40 years" I would have spent the extra 20%. Why? Because I was replacing a furnace that has lasted 40 years. The installer never said that so of course I expected that the new one would also last the same amount of time the old one did. Now do you see why I'm irked? Back in 1999 they didn't have a way for a consumer to understand what was happening in the residential HVAC industry only the dealers understood.

And now because of so many years of that happening, the better furnace designs have been pushed out of the market by the crap. So the HVAC industry accomplished their goal of shortening the customer expectation of how long a furnace is going to last and the next thing on the agenda is consolidation so they can all monopolize the market and gradually raise prices until the cost of the thing is the same as it would have been if they were still making tanks that last 40 years.

And as for the auto market - yeah I am aware of what they are doing on that and I could write a book on it - but I will merely point out that in another 20 years the gas engine is going to be obsolete in passenger cars they will be electric. Gas engine design has been pushed as far as it will go. That's why they are doing all those strange things with building them so they can't be serviced they have no choice because of the CAFE regulations. That's why Trump wants to roll them back but it's way too late now. You would have to roll CAFE back to 20mph to see the gas designs go back to being easily serviced, the future now is electric.

Merry Christmas to you as well!

 

Also I just looked up the radio thermostat, I have only seen two of their models in over 20 years and both were failed and replaced. Did not even know that they were the manufacturer till I seen the products they make. No phone number only email and no commercial distribution that I could find. Looks like another DIY company that dabbles in the thermostat ring. Would not recommend.

Have a blessed day
J

 

It's not the MFR, it's the consumer that demands cheap crap!! The MFR may need to meet profits for shareholders, but in the end that is consumer driven as well.

Just look at appliances, for example. It's cheaper to replace than repair.

 

Interesting that you think dealers will know how a particular model will function and what life span it will have when we have no experience with it until we install several. The other thing is not all installations are created equal, most are subpar, some are down right horrible. The better the install the better the chance you will get better life out of it. I have very few that are issues for lifespan barring a few that needed duct improvements that were recommended but not done. It's not my fault for not offering and explaining why, it's not the manufacturers for not mandating duct updates/repairs on every install, I don't think you want the government to tell you you have to have your ducts fixed so who does that leave in the equation?

You are forgetting a huge part of the equation for the manufacturers. It is a little thing called government intervention. When the government dictates efficiency that 3/16" heat exchanger that lasted 40 years gets replaced by a thinner one, that is not as robust, but grabs more heat out of a cubic foot or natural gas.

 

I am all for units that would last longer, even 20yrs ago, I cannot think of one manufacturer that would last 40 years like your original one. That is something your installing contractor should have made you aware of, but there is a flip side to telling you that. If he would have made you aware of that, but another contractor stated his brand would last longer even if it was a lie, most buyers will believe what they want to here. Sad but true.

I will give you an example, I am most definently not the cheapest in most instances because I perform all the necessary calculation and design for a home which takes more unseen billable time. Then also my material list is about about 40% more cost due to wanting to make sure the equipment is installed as close to manufacturers criteria as possible without totally tearing up the home to replace all the ductwork if possible. So sometimes that can make my quote 10-25% more than another company that just wants to slam a unit. However that company is making more on the job due to less behind the scenes billable time and less materials with less installation time. Now don’t get me wrong, some customers listen and see all the tests I do on their existing system and the measurements I perform on their home and no other contractor did that and they pick me. However, others will only use me if I will match the other contractor that performed no tests or calculations, that is if they contact me back. Some will just go with the Slam Bam Thank You Mam company, that gave them a cost that was too good to be true.

Many times a poor specked system that was poorly sized and poorly designed, never setup right will not have issues right away. But it may be lucky to make it to that hypothetical 10 year mark you talked about. I have seen many systems of all brands have so many issues that the customer could not wait to get it replaced even before the 10yr mark. It was not the manufacturers fault in any of those cases.

Now let’s take a hypothetical 5k unit from a company that does not due any calculations and justs installs it without any care. Say my quote is 20% more due to the fact I am doing everything I can to make sure you have the right designed, setup, installed system. That now puts your hypothetical cost at 6k.

So now you would also like a unit designed with mainly American parts designed for durability. So then we will add your hypothetical 10-20%. Now your hypothetical cost is 6.6k-7.2k.

Manufacturers have ran the numbers and are constantly doing surveys on what is most important to the majority of customers. Sadly we live in a I want it and I want it now as cheap as possible Walmart economy.

The slam bam thank you mam companies and the others that just do the minimal are making money hand over fist compared to companies like mine. The old saying goes nice guys finish last, but I can sleep at night knowing I tried to do the right thing. Just hope I don’t go broke doing what I love.

So if you are saying you would go with a company that a hypothetical 5k but cost 6k-7.2k to have a longer lasting system then you are my type of customer. But there are a higher number of the population that would go with the 5k quote or even a lesser slam bam quote.

The cost listed are all hypotheticals and not based on any size or home design. This is the reason this website does not talk about costs as from one brand to another to just the models within the brand the costs can an do vary a lot, then you have the varying cost between contractors and amount of work each contractor is performing. Confusing huh. Cost can be all over the map, the company that is charging 50% more than another may be lowest cost over the lifetime of the system, and the company charging 50% less may cost you that amount or more to fix all their screw ups.

I am doing my part to buck the system as may on this site are also, to provide each customer with the best system they can. But we are not driving Bentley’s or even new cars. I drive a 10yr old Tacoma for a personal vehicle and live in a house I bought over 20yrs ago for 64k. But I am surviving.

Have a blessed rest of your day.

J

All costs are hypothetical and percentages hypothetical, I hope the mods are ok with imaginary numbers.

 

I am all for units that would last longer, even 20yrs ago, I cannot think of one manufacturer that would last 40 years like your original one. That is something your installing contractor should have made you aware of, but there is a flip side to telling you that. If he would have made you aware of that, but another contractor stated his brand would last longer even if it was a lie, most buyers will believe what they want to here. Sad but true.

Manufacturers have ran the numbers and are constantly doing surveys on what is most important to the majority of customers. Sadly we live in a I want it and I want it now as cheap as possible Walmart economy.


So if you are saying you would go with a company that a hypothetical 5k but cost 6k-7.2k to have a longer lasting system then you are my type of customer. But there are a higher number of the population that would go with the 5k quote or even a lesser slam bam quote.

The cost listed are all hypotheticals and not based on any size or home design.

I am doing my part to buck the system as may on this site are also, to provide each customer with the best system they can. But we are not driving Bentley’s or even new cars. I drive a 10yr old Tacoma for a personal vehicle and live in a house I bought over 20yrs ago for 64k. But I am surviving.

Have a blessed rest of your day.

J

All costs are hypothetical and percentages hypothetical, I hope the mods are ok with imaginary numbers.

You understand what I'm saying perfectly. Yes I would go with the 6-8k higher cost. Needless to say anyone telling me their product was better and last longer would have to give reasons why but the truth does stand up to scrutiny.

I'm an IT consultant and the cost cutting in my industry is horrendous and much worse is the many manufacturers who provide junk but charge a lot. There are only a few hardware makers in my industry that even attempt to provide top quality hardware, Apple, Cisco, and a few others but even the best ones are uneven and can and do manufacture trash that they sell right next to the top stuff. I got you beat though I drive a 16 year old Ford Focus.

But I did learn one thing earlier in life when I worked at one of those companies that made money hand over fist by doing minimal and that is that you will be hated by your customers and they will all love to give you the boot but they won't do it because you are the cheapest thing out there but they will be constantly threatening to boot you. And yes your company will make a lot more margin but in order to do it your people will be put through the grinder like nobody's business and you will spend all your time soothing customers that hate you and slow pay you and argue with every scrap they can on the bill and techs who are constantly quitting and the new ones you hire are next to worthless and go out to your customers and trash things and then you are out there kissing the behinds of people who would love nothing better than to stomp all their frustrations out on you. And over the years at every one of your customers sites the constant toll of doing "the minimal" will accumulate until one day all hell breaks loose and then next thing you will hear is a month later your customer will be spending $50k with a brand new IT guy who makes a sweet margin on that and replaces everything they have - the exact same thing you have been telling them for years to do and they said was too expensive - but no, of course the new guy is going to get the money on that deal and you will be blamed for providing junk and they will badmouth you to the world for the next 5 years.

I chose to spend most of my time with the tech because I love it and I chose to have happy customers who liked me and liked calling me and
the only way you can do this in IT consulting is to be self employed, and work by yourself only, and charge a flat rate and realize that from time to time something somewhere is going to really get screwed up and you will be up all night long dealing with it, and if the customer were to be billed for the actual time you spent, they couldn't afford you and you would be out of business because once a year something like that is going to happen to every one of the customers you have in your fold.

So yeah, I do get it. Either have an ulcer and make a lot of money and buy expensive toys but never get to really enjoy them because your going to hate 90% of your life and everyone you work for, or enjoy what you do and enjoy your job and no you won't be able to buy all the toys out there but the ones you can afford you will get more enjoyment out of than the wealthy man gets out of his many. Just like the Beatles song "A day in the life" that was 50 years ago, nothing has changed since.

I'm fine with the rest of the world loading up their carts at Walmart as long as I can buy my one thing from Snap On. I get it.

 

People are ok dropping $1000+ every 2 years for an iPhone...thread has gone off the rails...:beat: