Intense estimate
I spent most of my morning at home while the third and final company came in to give us an AC replacement estimate. I got the name of this company from mom who had heard they do good work. This was our first woman AC person. At first I was skeptical if a woman would know much about AC but she quickly removed that roadblock in my mind. Julie knew her stuff inside and out.
She went all the way through the attic and looked at EVERYTHING. None of the other reps were as thorough as she was. In total she spent two hours going through the house, dropping me little tidbits of info along the way. One thing I found appealing was Haines was able to do the airflow testing required for the Florida $1500 rebate. She was confident that after the new system was in place , along with all of the other changes she was proposing, that the house would pass. She said if it didn’t Haines would fix whatever needed to be fixed and retest for free, another huge bonus.
The price she quoted on the actual hardware was significantly less than my other Trane equipment quote. However the additional work they are proposing carries a hefty price tag. Not only do they want to replace the air registers, in total they would also be replacing/increasing 7 air ducts, the assorted distribution plenums, rebuilding the air handler platform, addressing some insulation issues and replacing the refrigerant lines from the air handler to the condenser outside. It would almost be completely gutting what we have which I like, a lot.
I thanked Julie for her time and headed out. When I compared the numbers, the final out of pocket cost, assuming I WOULD get the Florida rebate is nearly identical. For the same money I could get a lot more done.
I did find out one potential con. Haines will charge us a point and a half more if we pay for it with our American Express card, I could run it through the Visa or Mastercard at the quoted price.
I am sending the quote to the other guy that I liked to at least give him an opportunity to counter. We’ll see what happens. I expect to have a firm decision by Monday.
This weekend we have a race to time Saturday morning. Randall is driving over later Saturday to hang out. I plan on taking him as my date to see The Expendables. I am sure there will be various physical challenges taking place as well, several of which will be video taped for sure.