I requested a quote to replace our furnace through Home Advisor. Rich, From All Hours air, showed up on time and was very personable. He was the first contractor/technician to come out and give an estimate. As you can see, the quote is absolutely ridiculous. $9500 for Rheem 96% efficiency, Variable speed, two stage burner.
HOLY CRAP this ESTIMATE is DOUBLE most of the 11 other estimates. Even the estimate from a different HVAC for the same Rheem. Rich, who as I said was very polite and personable, went through all of the things that they would work on or replace. Pretty much exactly what the other reputable HVAC people said they would do. I am not completely sure of the price for the unit wholesale or even retail. But I found a few sites that list 96% AFUE for about $1599-$1800. even if we tack on 1000 dollars extra for markup , that is ridiculous. $7500 for markup and install? I included a picture of some articles with the average price for a Rheem installed was $3900 with a low of $2300 and high of $5500. This fit with all of the bids...except All Hours Air at near double the Nations high.
Also, Rheem apparently wants to protect the contractors, and will not release the price of the unit to the public. It seems they have loyalty to their sales and installation over the customers. Why can't they be upfront about how much the furnace cost? Because that way the contractors can't rip you off as easy. I am sure many of the furnace companies play this game. The only real prices I could get online were from Goodman. Goodman, Amana and Daiken are made by the same company. Every technician I talked to said don't get a Goodman. And yet everything I read about them is great. I wonder if it's because they put their prices up there and so HVAC companies can't charge the $5000.
Now first I must say that I have done a lot of research over the last year. It all started in Jan-2018 when my 40-year-old Bryant furnace went on the fritz and cost me about $175 to get it up and running. I decided I really needed to replace this unit. The new technologies available 40 years later should end up saving me a ton of money just in efficiency alone. I have an 80,000 BTU with about 60% efficiency when it was installed 40 years ago. I can't even imagine that it would even be 50% this many years later. That means that half of my energy cost is lost. We are in the country and use propane, that is quite expensive. The new furnaces are 80%, 90%, 92%, 95%, 96.5%, 97%, even at 98%. They also have single stage and two stage burning, along with variable speed fans. Single stage is what has been around for quite a few years, variable speed fans and two stage burners allow for quieter as well as steady temperature control. It's supposed to be much more comfortable.
After doing research I learned that United Technologies is a parent company for Carrier, Bryant, Day-and-night and Payne furnace. I also learned a sneaky little fact that for many years, the company would send out a furnace along with 4 stickers, one for carrier, one for Bryant, Payne, and one for day and night. The installer would slap the sticker on the machine depending on which brand the person ordered. Unfortunately for the customer, they ended up paying $600-$1000 more for the exact same furnace because they wanted a carrier sticker. Once customer started catching on, which took like 50 years, they started changing things just a little bit. However, in general, you get the same furnace either way. Also Ruud and Rheem are the same, just different model numbers.
Bottom line is do your research. Also, what of the best pieces of advice I read from ASM, Was that you pretty much we're going to get a good purchase a matter which one of these companies, so choose based on the company that is going to install it. Research on yelp, Google reviews, Better Business Bureau. That's going to be your best way to go regardless of which furnace you choose. I also would like to think ASM for such a great informational review of all of the major carriers. They do offer a service for $29 that takes in your geographic area, elevation, square footage, all kinds of information and give you report on what is best for you.