Goodman Furnace - POS or decent?

[Nick1911]

I need a furnace.  The current one doesn't work at all.  While the heat exchange doesn't appear to be cracked, it's very rusty and has a bad gas valve.

Since it's a 35 year old unit, I'm seriously considering replacing it.  An HVAC guy I had take a look quoted me the following equipment:

Goodman 95% AFLU Furnace GMH950904CXH $2407.33 -  installed, after tax.

Is goodman a decent furnace?  It has a stainless heat exchanger, lifetime warrantyon heat exchange, 10 year parts warranty, and 1 year parts and labor.

Thoughts?

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

wait for 280 plus    the price sounds good

[Manedwolf]

I don't know if that's a good deal or not, but I have heard that some people are getting brand-new furnaces cheap from builder liquidation warehouses, when a housing development is canceled but the stuff was already ordered and might have been partially assembled, so cannot be returned. Furnaces, sinks and vanities, all that sort of stuff on a warehouse floor.

[Mabs2]

Consider a heat pump.
Unless you're in one of those places where it's a billion degrees below zero all winter, it really is the best choice.  And even in those areas geothermal should work.

[Manedwolf]

Consider a heat pump.
Unless you're in one of those places where it's a billion degrees below zero all winter, it really is the best choice.  And even in those areas geothermal should work.

Geothermal is about $20,000 upfront.

[K Frame]

It would probably be well in excess of $2,500 to retrofit and install a new heat pump system.

[Mabs2]

Oh well.

[Desertdog]

From what I read in your model number post, it is a 95% efficient furnace.  You are not likely to get a more efficient model and the price looks reasonable, especially with the warrenty you quoted.

I really doubt if a heat pump unit would be any cheaper to operate unless you are in an area with extremely low cost electrical rates, and the initial installation would probably be a lot more.

[cfabe]

Well I just installed the same furnace a week ago in my house, so I guess I can comment on this. I did some research online concerning the Goodman furnaces. You will read some bad stuff and some good stuff about them. They are positioned in the market as a lower-end furnace. I do not think this makes them a bad furnace, most all furnaces use the same guts, controls, blowers, gas valves, etc just in a different steel box & heat exchanger. Their warranty is among the best in the business. The big difference I found with Goodman is that their distribution network is not as well regulated as most of the other brands, so pretty much anyone can go buy a Goodman furnace and install it. A lot of fly-by-night hackjob installers install goodman furnaces and the installation problems give the furnaces a bad name. In any case you should make sure that your contractor is qualified to do the work and has the necessary licenses & insurance... be doubly sure if he's installing a Goodman or Amana(made by goodman) sine their distribution is "looser."

I actually installed mine myself. It's not rocket science if you're comfortable with plumbing, electrical, and sheet metal work. FYI I paid $850 for the down-draft version of the model you listed, including the propane conversion kit. And I bought it through a dealer who still made some profit on the sale. So that gives you an idea of the actual cost of the furnace versus what you're being charged in labor/profit.

One thing I didn't like about the Goodman multi-speed furnaces is while they use a dual-stage gas valve, the controller does not allow for true 2-stage heating with a 2-stage thermostat. The control works only with a normal 1-stage heat thermostat and uses internal logic to decide the stage. Actually the factory default is just single stage operation, and there are dip switches you can set to select 2-stage operation and the time delay to switch to high heat. What it does is start up on low, then after 5 minutes or a variable delay it switches over to high if the t-stat is still calling for heat. A true 2-stage thermostat would run the furnace on low unless it high heat was absolutely necessary (very cold day or just turned up thermostat). This is probably not a huge deal but consider it when comparision shopping. The Goodman variable speed furnaces do offer true 2-stage heating at about a $250 premium.

What all is included in the quote? It seems high to me for just a remove/replace. If he's got to do ductwork changes or add a long PVC vent it may not be a bad price. One thing though, did the contractor do a heat load analysis on your house or did he just guess at the size of the furnace? A good installer will either do a "manual J" calculation manually or use a piece of software to do it. You can actually buy a limited use license for the software for $50 to do the sizing yourself, I used it before ordering my new furnace and it's pretty slick, very easy to use. www.hvaccomputer.com is the website for the software.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

[Gewehr98]

Save some money and buy an indoor, propane-fired catalytic heater.  Just make sure you have the place sealed up really well, too. 

Your heating costs will drop substantially once you keel over from CO poisoning. 

(Oops, was that thread drift?)   

[Nick1911]

Okay, after the guy left, I was able to fire up the current furnace.  It was missing a plastic knob on the internal gas valve.  I found two halfs of said valve on the floor, and glued them together.

So now the question is - replace the current furnace with a 95% efficient model, or keep running the original, rusted out, 35+ year old (Probably 40% efficient) furnace?  (For what it's worth, the heat exchanger is still in one piece...)

Thanks for all the good comments.  In general, everyone I've talked to said that Goodman's use to not be so great, but are now a very good value for the price.

Your heating costs will drop substantially once you keel over from CO poisoning. 

I actually just bought a CO detector, with digital readout.  I don't trust that 35 year old monster...

In any case you should make sure that your contractor is qualified to do the work and has the necessary licenses & insurance... be doubly sure if he's installing a Goodman or Amana(made by goodman) sine their distribution is "looser."

The company seems quite reputable.  They also install Trane and Lennox systems - although the tech I spoke with suggested Goodman as a better value for the money.

What all is included in the quote? It seems high to me for just a remove/replace. If he's got to do ductwork changes or add a long PVC vent it may not be a bad price.

There is some ductwork involved - several things will be rearranged and replaced.

One thing though, did the contractor do a heat load analysis on your house or did he just guess at the size of the furnace? A good installer will either do a "manual J" calculation manually or use a piece of software to do it.

I'm not sure.  He took down some info about the house, size, number of rooms, etc.  Then went back to the truck to figure out what equipment he'd recommend.

[wmenorr67]

Is this the company I recommended to you?

[Nick1911]

Is this the company I recommended to you?

No, actually this is a place close to the house that a neighbor recommended.  Now that you mention it, I should get a second opinion from the place you suggested.  Always good to have options, and I feel that I can be a bit more choosy now that I know the pipes wont freeze while I'm acquiring bids.

[wmenorr67]

What is the name of the company, if you don't mind me asking?

[Nick1911]

wmenorr67, PM sent.

[Brad Johnson]

Goodman is an economy brand. They work, and fairly well.  They are just not as rugged a a Trane or Carrier and tend to have a more problems over the life of the unit.

Also, 95% efficiency sounds good, but look at the price diff between that and an 80-85% efficient model.  It's usually significant enough that the energy savings will not offset the higher unit price over the expected life of the unit.  (There are sometimes some rebates/incentives for higher efficiency units that might make up the difference.)  You'd probably be better off on a utility cost basis to get an 80% efficient model and use the difference in price to blow in more attic insulation.

One of my best friends is an HVAC tech.  He loves Goodman because the units keep him in repair calls.

Brad

[Nick1911]

The goodman 80% unit ran $1650ish installed.  (I don't recall the exact number)

Simple payback analysis yields a break even point at about 7 years.

[Brad Johnson]

The goodman 80% unit ran $1650ish installed.  (I don't recall the exact number)

Simple payback analysis yields a break even point at about 7 years.

Adding insualtion to your attic might be the better investment.  About 60% of your heat loss is through the ceiling/attic.  Going from 4-6" of insulation to 10-12" will cut the heat migration by about 50%.  Run your figure using the 80% unit plus a 30% reduction in heating bills (a 50% reduction in 60% of your heat loss).  See how that compares to the long-term expense estimates you got with the 95% unit.

Brad

[280plus]

Good points all. Yes, goodman is a "Brand X" unit although I hear they claim a pretty good share of the market in some parts of the country. I have installed a few for a company I do work for, I'm not crazy about them but all in all they're not bad. The price I'd have to do some checking on, seems a bit high if you can get the unit for $850. I would definitely get a few more quotes. I know both Carrier and Bryant ( which are essentially the same) offer a decent rebate on their high efficiency stuff. Much more sophisticated than the Goodman. I believe they too offer lifetime warrantees on the HX. A heatpump can work well for you if it's installed so that it shuts off below 35* and you switch over to a fossil fuel fired furnace, They are TERRIBLE in the colder climates when coupled to electric resistance heaters and allowed to run at below freezing temps.

[280plus]

Took a little searching but now I can tell you Goodman is Amana or they are related somehow.

Found more:

Amana® is a trademark of Maytag Corporation and is used under license to Goodman Company, L.P.

[Jim147]

Amana's heating and cooling division had to be spun off when the merger happened.

Amana's heating and cooling warranty was always handled separate from their
normal white good line.

I did service for Amana and Goodman.
Parts were slow to get and warranty payment was even slower.

The units themselves were not that bad it was the company.
We quit doing service for them a couple of years before I left my last company.

[roo_ster]

Goodman also produced HVAC under the "Janitrol" name after 1982.

Common nickname: "Janijunk."

I should know, as my AC unit is Janijunk. On the positive side, I am going to play around with it and see if I can improve its performance*.  If I screw it up, I ruin a 15 YO Janijunk AC.  

* Bigger fan motor, bigger fan in larger sheet-metal venturi housing on top of unit, misters set about hte unit, fenced in to keep it out of the sun, & a few other things my neighbor has pioneered on his janijunk AC.

[never_retreat]

I believe Goodman is a division of Amana. I put in on of their AC condensers 3 years ago on my friends store. It seemed well made without the price of the carrier or trane name. One of the nice things about the smaller brands is that they use honeywell internal components you can get anywhere. I believe trane and some of the others big brands use propitiatory components. So what that means is if you need parts just go to the local plumbing house and pick them up. Not deal with a company that only sells to installers.
There is another company called Crown Boiler out of PA that makes some nice equipment cheep and is local.

[280plus]

Crown is good, I sell their boilers. Very good service to me the contractor when I have a problem, which have been few (one actually) and minor.

yea, I remember Janitrol, haven't seen one for a while. I will say Goodman's condensers are bare bones but fairly well made units. Copeland compressors and copper tubes, not aluminum. Last time I seen one they were anyways. I just installed a couple of their furnaces and I just wasn't wowed by them. True on the parts being slow to get. Suppliers that sell the units don't usually stock the components so you have to wait for shipment unless you pay the premium for overnight. of course, everybody's getting to be like that now. If it doesn't sell very often the computer will eliminate it from the stock list. It's all about the numbers these days.

[cfabe]

The information I found regarding goodman & amana was that Goodman was originally started back in the 80s by an HVAC contractor, got a pretty bad reputation for building crap, in 1997 goodman bought Amana and used most of their designs for furnaces dumping their own designs. Later in 2001 they sold the appliance side of Amana and the Amana brand to Maytag but retained rights to use Amana brand name on furnaces. Currently there's not much difference between the Amana and Goodman furnaces. In fact the only two differences I found are the Amanas use some sort of timing logic to extend the life of the hot surface ignitors and the Amanas have a completely stainless steel heat exchanger where the Goodmans use stainless for the secondary exchanger and alumized steel for the primary exchanger.

I thought my furnace was pretty well built. You could tell it was a cost optimized design in terms of steel & copper usage but there's nothing particularly wrong with that.

If you were asking about choosing a furnace for a new $500k house I think you would be well advised to look at higher end equipment than goodman, but for a replacement in a normal house I think they're a fine unit. I heat primarilly with wood and just use the propane as backup so I wanted to get the old unit replaced as cheap as possible, which is why I went with Goodman and DIYed the install. Couldn't see spending $3-4k for an installed top line Trane or Carrier system that will just be used a few months a year. I use propane in spring and fall when temps are moderate and then fire up the wood boiler for most of the winter. At least that's my plan, this is my first year with the boiler.