Hi,
The heating/air conditioner system in our new house is about to be installed in the next few days. The heating/air conditioner tech mentioned that the price of our home includes a Maytag 100k BTU furnace and a 14 SEER air conditioner (forget the brand), both with 10/10 warranties.
a) Is the Maytag 100k BTU, 92.5% AFUE efficiency furnace the right capacity furnace for our house? Our house is a three level (Two finished floors and unfinished walk-out basement) 3300 sqft house in Minnesota.
b) As I understand from my builder and heating technician, they will also be extending 6 heating ducts to the basement floor to provide heat runs as an alternative way to heat the basement instead of spending extra money on heated floors. How well does this method of heating the basement compare to the traditional heated floors?
The heating tech suggested adding a couple items: c) A variable speed motor - He mentioned this is an ECM motor (invented by GE when they owned Trane) and said it would be lot more quiet compared to the standard A/C motor, especially in the "continuous mode" and more efficient. He said they already build the ducts in the house big enough to make the most efficient use of the ECM motor. I did some research on the internet, including this site, and his claims about the advantages of ECM motor seem to be valid. A lot of other heating techs on the net seem to highly recommend these, especially for new and replacement furnaces. I wonder, however, what would be a reasonable upgrade price for this motor for our furnace? I've seen prices for new/replacement ECM motors on the Internet of ~$500. The furnace tech has quoted us additional cost $550 to go with the ECM motor - however, if we are "exchanging" the regular A/C motor with the D/C motor, shouldn't we be getting some credit for the cost of the A/C motor? Does the upgrade price for the ECM motor seem reasonable?
d) Finally, the heating tech suggested putting a Trion Media filter system with 5" media filter instead of the standard 1" filter system normally installed by the builder. He said these are quite cost effective compared to the standard filter system and we would recover the additional cost ($295) in a few years by the savings in the replacement filter costs. Does the upgrade price for the filter system seem reasonable?
Would appreciate any feedback on these four questions from experts on this forum.
Thanks,
-Topper