rhinoguy

I have a fifteen year old Goodman. It has eaten four ignitors, the firebox (free replacement) and now the controller board. I don't want another one! It always fails the day before I have to leave town.
I need a 75K updraft that is reliable and easy to fix if it stops. I'll pay extra for reliable. But if I don't have to pay extra...
Anyone have experience with Hamilton Home Products? I never heard of them.They are certainly cheap. How about Dayton from Grainger? Both of these are cheap and available tomorrow.
I've been told Rheem is the way to go by people who own them. I know all about owner biases though.
I have adequate space, the utility room is attached but separate from the house. 8' X 4' X 11' tall, shared with the water heater. Chimney is new four inch galvanized. 14" flexiduct in and out.
My gas bill runs about $120 in really cold months. How long to pay off the difference between 82% and 93% efficiency.
Yes, I know Amana is Goodman, as is Janitrol.
And what do I strip off the Goodman before it goes to the curb?

mdshunk

Don't shop for the brand, shop for the contractor.

Goodman is entry level, so you got what you paid for. At the moment, if you made me pick a brand, I'd lean toward York or Trane.

rhinoguy

I'm not worried about the contractor (me), I'm worried about the furnace. I've already replaced the chimney, four ignitors, the firebox and I'm NOT replacing the darned controller.

mdshunk

I fully believe that you stand an equal chance of getting a good unit, no matter which of the popular brands you choose. Speaking as a guy who's worked on a heck of a lot of them, they're all pretty much the same. If one of the things on your wish list is 'easy to work on', stay away from variable speed units.

rhinoguy

A friend suggested (as you did) that most furnaces are the same. So pick the one that has a lot of parts suppliers in town. It's the parts situation that frustrates most people. I'll ask my appliance parts shop tomorrow.

playsinmud

First mistake, goodman. I've used alot of tempstar/keeprite (same thing) they're really good. But I've been starting to use the york affiniity series... sweet stuff... Depending on what market you're doing. If you want high end gas. that's the best.. Rheem is good to but requires more field wiring. If you want to know more just ask. You're better off selling higher end equipment, trust me I know what you mean and if you sell high end and do high end work, you'll be able to afford the trips to mexico and ENJOY them

playsinmud

I forgot to mention. If this is your own place at least go to a two stage unit. You will thank me in one year with your energy savings. That was why I'm so impressed with the york affiinity series. The gas valve fully modulates, so on a 75k it will go from like 15k to 75k.. It senses it's own static and everything, reliable and all that. but if you're replacing mid to mid at least go 2 stage please.

trptman

That's a good way to go. Most any furnace you end up with, will need some part replaced at some point. Figure out where those parts are available.
That being said, I have a rental house with a 15 yr old Goodman, and I've replaced everything you have and at this point I havent had any problems out of it for a while (knocking on wood). It's almost a brand new furnace internally. If your unit is not causing problems currently, I'm not so sure Id spend the money to replace it just to replace it.
One name brand I'd be a little leery of unless any full time HVAC guys can give input on-maybe they've gotten better, is BARD.
Of all the rentals I do work on, I'm not so sure we don't have more problems with Bard than Goodman.

rhinoguy

I did not choose this unit. I was literally dying of end stage liver failure at the time the city of Greensboro told me I MUST put in a furnace since baseboard electric strips were going to be banned. I never question governmental orders because you can't apply logic to an illogical decision. I pleaded my case and THEY put the system in at their cost.
When I came home from the hospital the furnace was in, the installation stunk but the heat was wonderful. 75K in 1,000 ft house. One degree rise every two minutes! R-70 attic, R-39 walls. This was 1993.
1998 the first ignitor failed in the middle of the night.
2001 the ignitor went out again in the middle of the night.
2003 the ignitor went out again in the middle of the night.
2007 the ignitor went out again in the middle of the night.
2007 the firebox blew out the funky rivets and filled the house with exhaust!
Goodman/Badman admitted that they were supposed to have told me this piece of dangerous junk was recalled and I could have one for free. Local shop wanted $550 to put it in. I put it in . Took two hours and a nutdriver, duct tape and high temp silicone. I can spin a wrench or a smoke wrench as needed!
THE CONTROL BOARD CONKED OUT this week. I have had it with this thing!
I'm heating the house with a kerosene heater because the control board is $134.57 my price.
I have been told that Hamilton Home Products are made by all the other big names, like York or Trane. Has anyone seen these re-badges anywhere? Or Winchester, another re-badge? These are available TODAY for good prices.
Like under a grand! And parts are available even closer to home.
I would buy from an HVAC supply house except that they all now I am not a full time installer of HVAC and they refuse to sell to me. Northern Tool doesn't care!
I need to buy a furnace very soon, today would be grand!

IRISHADAM711

You seem to think the furnace is the whole problem. I believe it not to be the case. So many reasons why you are having trouble I dont know where to begin....Over my 20 plus yrs in the service field I have found most HVAC service calls are due to poor installation from the start or even poor repairs that make it worse. ( I assume this is a standard 80% which gets its combustion air from inside the mechanical room) Your ignitors could be due to the room they are in , I mean maybe its a laundry room and some of the venting is causing an over amount of dust, or the original ignitor was installed on the flat and after the first replacement they didnt convert it to avoid future failures, heck maybe they changed it out using only wire nuts and not the original plug end.... control boards go on every make and model furnace, fire box??? would need more info on..
In short you get what you pay for normally...Some people are out to scam so we all need to be aware and check these companies out. I have a few favorite brands but they are my favorites due to being easy to service. Not that they are a better brand.

mdshunk

You keep asking about Hamilton, so you'll be interested to know that might be another Janitrol brand. Janitrol is sold as Goodman, Hamilton, Johnstone, Sears-Kenmore. Lately, Hamilton's (and Winchester, same thing) have had Luxaire model numbers on them, which is York's low line. It would be worth getting the model number off the proposed HHP unit and look it up in a Preston's or Carson-Dunlap book and see who made your particular proposed unit.

trptman

[quote=IRISHADAM711;395360... most HVAC service calls are due to poor installation from the start


This is also a good point. On my rental house Goodman , I had to replace the heat exchanger (I assume that's what you mean by firebox)-well I didin't do it, I called someone to do something that major. The problem turned out to be not enough "cold air return" volume not allowing enough air flow through the unit etc...

With that in mind, if you put a better quality unit in the same installation, you might end up with the same problems if there are underlying problems outside the unit itself.
134 is your cost for the new board vs. how much for a whole new furnace?
I know it's tempting to get a better "name brand" but I have rental properties to fill in time between bigger jobs and we see problems with furnaces across many "name brands".
What's funnier is that some of the most trouble free units are the old inefficient furnaces with standing pilots, no control boards, no hot surface ignitors etc.
Yea I know the new ones have all the safeties, but there is something to be said for a simpler design being more reliable. Sorry, I got off track a bit there.

Outside the firebox (heat exchanger?), it doesnt sound like you're experiencing anything wildly unusual. The ignitors are easy to replace and not expensive.
Anyhow, I'm not pushing Goodman brand, just pushing the idea that you might not be so bad off replacing the board and getting more useful life out of the unit.

rhinoguy

The folks who installed my unit did the usual shortcut stuff. All of the tape let go quickly. I used silicone rubber on all of the joints. The plenum box is the right size, the flexies are the right size, the vents are the right size for the house.
I have a typical Southeast design house. The crawl space is dug down about two feet. The foundation is raised about two feet. The utility room has the gas water heater and the furnace setting on a concrete slab level with the ground. Any water entering can drain off into the dirt before getting to the equipment. This gives me a gap of about fourteen inches to slide into the crawl space and about forty inches of headroom in there. The foundation is ventilated so the air is drawn from outdoors. The utility room is completely cut off from the living space. The room is open to the attic so any heat built up rises to the attic and goes out the 26 X 38 Gable vents.

Today I got exceptionally lucky. I found an electronic surplus parts site (www.allelectronics.com) that has the relay that failed on the control board. Seventy five cents each. I bought three and a whole lot of other stuff to play with. Now all I have to do is lie down on an old sofa cushion I saved and solder the booger in.

The Goodman will live until this summer. Then I will get serious about putting in a new furnace. Six repairs in fifteen years is too many. No matter what else, I just don't trust this thing any more.
BTW, heating with kerosene, even temporarily, stinks! Even hooked to a chimney, it stinks! Jeez....

mdshunk

Best of luck with whatever you end up with, but I'd call your service record with your Goodman "normal" for any brand.