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TRIIAC SERVICES

Heating, Air Conditioning and Appliance Repair

(817)473-0908

Manufacturers

Is there a difference between equipment manufacturers? Yes there is, choosing the manufacturer will make a huge difference if you have a problem after installation. Now one of the first things that I need to mention is that who installs it makes a huge difference. If flyby night installs your air conditioner and do not follow proper procedure you may very well wind up paying for it a couple of years down the road. So check references. With that being said I can go into some more detail. After working with different manufacturers for several years I've noticed a lot of difference. I've had personal experience with a couple of them and it's not been pleasant. Most manufacturers are pretty good if things are going well. It's when you have a problem that you may run into issue

One point would be my experience with Amana. First thing you need to know is it's owned by American Distributors or Goodman which manufactures the Janitrol line. Builders love Janitrol. It's cheap and simple, they as I've mentioned before own Amana and if you have a choice between the two you might as well choose Janitrol because there’s not much difference between the two (except for price). But to continue with my story, I installed an Amana heat pump in my home and it worked fine until winter came. Starting in the heat pump mode it would scream like a cat. I called Amana because it’s waking up the whole house at night and is quit irritating during the day. Not to mention it’s embarrassing because people come over I work on air conditioners and mine could wake the dead. We’ll their fine initially and they send part after part, which in itself is not good because one of the worst things you can do is open the sealed system and they are repeatedly having me open my brand new air conditioner. Nothing works so they start to grasp at straws; Bruce Gifford (their technical support at the time) actually wants me to go into the attic to do a load calculation. I’m not a rocket scientist but I know if you’ve got a noise outside the last place you want to go is in the attic. Your duct (which worked fine with my old system) has absolutely nothing to do with a noise outside. Well I didn’t realize it but what they were doing was setting me up to drop me. Eventually that’s what they did, Pretty much told me to get lost. If they’ll do that to a dealer imagine what they’ll do to you.

Now what I do is charge the system one way for summer operation and another for winter it’s a hassle but that’s what I’m left with unless I want to purchase a new outdoor unit and that’s expensive even for me. It does let you know about their character though.

Another case in point is Rheem & Rhuud. I’ve got no real problem with Rheem they make some pretty good equipment but when it came time to warranty a compressor that I noticed a difference. Rheem has a $50.00 dollar handling charge on their warranty compressors. Now that really doesn’t make any sense to me. So I go into the hmmm… phase, I thought a warranty was supposed to protect you from manufactures defects. So in my terms this means you’ll have a warranty if you pay for it. Hmmm….none of the manufactures pay for labor on their warranty after a year and it’s usually the contractor that covers the labor on the first year anyway, but to charge a hidden fee is really kind of chicken stuff I thought. I’ll leave it up to you to decide.

Better stick with the people that have the name in the industry. Lennox, Trane & Carrier there is more cost up front but at least it’s not hidden. Now I sell a lot of Janitrol they are cheap and simple. They also carry one of the best warranties on the market. Any time that I've had a problem with Janitrol it was quick and easy. So not all cheaper brands are totally without character.