Looking for AC Installer

[eblend]

Hi guys,

I know this comes up every year, usually during the balls hot weather, but I want to jump the guy this year and get an AC installed finally, and get it done before the summer.

Costco has a deal of some kind now (I don't have details yet) where you get some amount back as a Costco Cash card, but reading online, many reviews are not that positive (mostly out of the states).

So, anyone have any recommendations for best price/quality company to deal with? I could get quotes from multiple places, but that takes time, so hoping whoever has gone through the process can recommend someone and which AC brands to stay away from.

I was a mid-efficiency furnace right next to where the AC would outside, however would need them to fish the power cable from the power panel on the other side of the finished basement.

[sabad66]

Don't bother with Costco - they just subcontract it out and it always ends up coming in higher price even after the gift card.

W&J will likely be the cheapest, but i believe they only install Trane so if you want a different brand you might have to look elsewhere.

I used a company called Lendrix which were pretty competitive in pricing, and usually they have an early bird deal. They install Lennox and i like the brand so that's why i personally went with them.

Most companies should have enough basic electrician skills to fish wire across a finished basement (although they may have to cut access holes depending on your setup).

Differentiators between companies are mostly warranties. I think W&J still does 10 years parts&labour which is hard to beat. Lots of other companies are 10 year parts but only 3 years labour.

The tricky part will be picking the specific model. Lots of people are happy with the lowest model but they are also the loudest. Basically as you go up in models they get quieter and more efficient (higher SEER value) but obviously more expensive. Noise is one of those things that is really hard to tell unless you hear it in person and also depends on where you want it placed. When they give you a quote they will talk to you about the noise thing.

[bjstare]

There's a couple other somewhat recent threads on this.

We had W&J do ours last spring, would recommend. Nice people, did decent work, showed up on time, etc etc. They had a $1k off earlybird discount IIRC. If you decide to go with them, lmk and we can split the referral bonus.

RE: which one to pick, unless it sits right outside an openable window, the noise isn't as much of an issue as people make it out to be. We got the XR13 (loudest cheapest model), and it is by no means loud. It's obviously not quiet if you are standing right next to it, but ours is on the side of our house where we spend no time, and there's not a window next to it, so . And efficiency-wise, in our climate they don't get used enough for that to be a critical issue either - the benefits of a higher efficiency one are notable for places in the southern states where the duty cycle is way higher on both an hrs/day, and days/yr basis.

[eblend]

Cool, I will check W&J out. If there is a referral that benefits you guys somehow, PM me the details.

[Mitsu3000gt]

I used Caloris and was happy with the price and service. Got a high-end 3ton Lennox installed for around $4500 all-in. I would use them again for sure. Warranties were pretty standard when I was looking but YMMV.

[BerserkerCatSplat]

W&J installed ours (twice, thanks hailstorm) and I was very happy with their work. Friendly bunch, the guy doing the gas charging was really excited to chat about how refrigerants work.

The Costco deal is garbage, they just act as a referral to Arpi's and their prices were sky-high

[redblack]

Another +1 for W&J. Best price in the city.