A few years ago, I decided it was time to add air conditioning to my home. After so many years of feeling so uncomfortable in the heat and humidity of Rochester summers, it was just time to make the change.

I talked with people I knew about what I should do and really had no opinion going into this on what I needed. To me, a furnace is just a box that keeps my house warm and air conditioning must be similar. My main goal was to get out of this as inexpensively as I could (a departure from my normal way of doing things…I try normally to weigh benefits and value vs. cost and buy the best value…not always the cheapest price…).

It turns out that one of my neighbors worked as a technician for a local company that specializes in commercial heating and air conditioning. He was a nice young man and he was interested in buying a furnace and air conditioning system through a supply house and putting it in for me at a “cheap price”. He seemed to have my best interest in mind, so I gave him the job to do.

He needed most of the cash upfront in order to pay for the furnace, air conditioning, and supplies needed to do the job. He said he should be able to install it within the next one to two weeks. He was my neighbor 2 doors down, so I took the chance. This was the beginning of my problems…

Since my neighbor needed to work every day during the day, it took him a week or so to buy my equipment. He arrived with everything and said he needed to put it in my garage until he could get to installing it…I asked when he thought he would begin installing the equipment. He said he was going on vacation the following week and would get on it as soon as he returned. I hadn’t had air conditioning for my whole life so far, so I figured I could wait…not that I had any choice. I left my car out of the garage and waited…

He returned from vacation and a couple days later, he began working on the project, after work. Since he had to run a refrigerant line between the air conditioning unit outside and the inside equipment, he decided to do that first. He moved all of my ceiling tiles around and ran the line that evening. It seemed like decent progress, but he didn’t neaten up very much…the tiles remained out of place and he left.

About three days later, he returned and dismantled enough to remove the old furnace from the basement and parked that with the rest of the equipment in my garage. I’m not sure what he would have done if I didn’t have room in my garage for everything…

The weekend was only a couple days away, surely he would be able to get this job done over the weekend so I could get my house and garage back…

The weekend came and he had other things he had to do, but promised he would put in more evenings during the week next week. I was wanting to keep things good in the neighborhood, I bit my lip and didn’t say much. Long story short, he did buckle down and put some evenings in over the next couple weeks (no weekend time) and about a month into this, I had a new furnace and air conditioning! The summer was now half gone, but I had it for future years, so I was reasonably satisfied.

When I asked him for a receipt for the job, he said he doesn’t do receipts. This made it impossible for me to pursue the RGE rebate. I still felt I had a great price and didn’t really have any choice as that was his position…pretty shady. I’m also still not sure what I’ll do if anything ever goes wrong with this system…without adequate proof of purchase, I think it will probably be my problem.

The air conditioner seemed to cool my house pretty well, but I noticed the humidity didn’t seem to drop as much as I had expected it would. I was cool, but still not as comfortable as I expected…

Along comes heating season…my furnace is much louder than the old one and the fan only runs on one speed – high…my old furnace fan had more speeds and ran quietly on a slower speed when that was adequate…hmmmm…it also seems to cycle on and off more often than it used to. It heats up the house fast, but keeps running and shutting off.

When I went to change the filter on my new furnace, I had to take off two doors on the front and get down on my back and fight with it to get the new one in. Where he cut the opening in the side of my furnace, it was pretty jagged and wants to snag on the new filters as I slide them in. It seems like there had to have been a better way…

I didn’t know where to turn to find answers, an acquaintance introduced me to Mark Hoffman, the owner of Airquip Heating and Air conditioning. My acquaintance had a very good experience with them when he purchased his Heating and air conditioning system and had it installed by Airquip. Mark was extremely knowledgeable and took the time to discuss what was going on with my furnace.

Mark explained that based on the size of my home, both my furnace and air conditioner were not sized properly. They were actually both too big. I figured that shouldn’t be a big deal as bigger usually is better, but he then explained why that is not so with heating and air conditioning.

It turns out that if you have too big of an air conditioning system, it will cool quickly, but not adequately dehumidify, leaving you cold and clammy. He explained that with the right variable speed Trane furnace, they even have a special feature that runs awhile on a slower fan speed at the beginning and end of the cooling cycle to allow the unit to grab the moisture from the air better. That’s not going to happen with mine as the fan only runs on “high” speed.

As far as the furnace, being oversized will make the furnace cycle on and off more frequently as it heats up too fast. Mark explained that this can even be hard on the equipment and could lead to possible failures of such things as the blower fan and even the heat exchanger over time! Also, if the fan is too powerful for the ductwork, it will cause more issues.

I told him about the filter and he explained that most reputable companies, including Airquip Heating and Air Conditioning, would have changed the cold air return boot and added a slot for the filter that would be accessible without removing the front cover of the furnace. I think that would be smarter in so many ways…I always struggle to get the door back on and knowing nothing about the equipment should never be in there. He also explained that they have an air cleaner available through Aprilaire that removes much more dust and helps with allergies…another thing I have a problem with.

I asked Mark how long it would have taken Airquip to install a system if I had purchased from them and he said that he would have sent two or three installers as needed and had the job done typically in one day! Wouldn’t that have been nice…and I would have had my air conditioning all summer…

I will be using Airquip Heating and Air Conditioning to service my equipment from here. Unfortunately, a furnace and air conditioning is a fairly significant investment and I am going to have to live with my decisions for now. This is a 15 to 20 year lesson, unless at some point I decide to bite the bullet earlier.

Based on what I have learned, I have a low-end, single stage, single speed oversized heating and air conditioning system. It is not as efficient or as comfortable as a two stage variable speed furnace would have been. I didn’t get the RGE rebate. I could have had my system installed in one day.

The next time, I will buy a quality two stage, variable speed Trane furnace and air conditioning system from Airquip Heating and Air Conditioning!

Sandra D. Rochester, NY