Goodman Air Conditioners - Anyone Has Experience/Opinion (installed, room, cost)

[car54]

Originally Posted by BigJon3475

let's keep some facts straight though:

Goodman doesn't condone the sale of HVAC equipment to people who are unqualified to install it.
Goodman will not back any warranty for items bought off the internet.
Goodman distributes to whole sellers who then sell straight to the public. If you have a warranty claim and you installed the equipment you have to remove the part that is defective and send it to them so they can then file the warranty claim. It the one way around internet buys. The bad part is from stories it seems to take anywhere from 3 to 10 times as long for the part to come in as opposed to going straight through a contractor.

Also another thing to remeber if you buy the equipment online and then start calling companies to install it....don't expect many to give you discounts. Some may even raise their fee and have it in writing....and they may also may tell you that though they stand behind their work they make no warranty claims since you bought the items through the net.

If you can look past all those and still feel strongly enough that you can do the job more power to you. It's just the facts....I'd hate to see anyone go straight out and buy their own equipment then be stuck with it not knowing how to install it or have the proper tools to do it.

Everything you say is true.

My point in posting was merely to reassure the OP that Goodman has a bad rep not because they make lousy equipment, but because their competitors don't like Goodman's business practices.

[BigJon3475]

Originally Posted by car54

Everything you say is true.

My point in posting was merely to reassure the OP that Goodman has a bad rep not because they make lousy equipment, but because their competitors don't like Goodman's business practices.

Yes they are threatened by them. I wasn't taking pot shots....That's just what I was thinking as we got a little further into the thread.

[Threerun]

My gut tells me that Goodman is neither the best or worst brand out there.

My dad was in heating/cooling all his life and I remember him always saying the best brand was whichever one made you the most money, lol.

He did mostly commercial work, but he did some residential and Bryant was one that he always deferred to..

And installation is very important. Critical, actually. Slapping a unit in with no technical expertise is just silly. I had my guys do the proper sizing and make the changes necessary to the ductwork/returns in order to make it work right. That was 25-30% of the bill.

The Goodman's are working to my great satisfaction, they're covered under a warranty and the installers have been around for 20+ years. Can't ask for any better than that, IMO.

[OldACguy]

There is nothing wrong with these units. I have installed quite a few of them over the years and have not had problems with any of them, including at my own house, and have not had a single repair under warranty with any of the ones I have put in. A couple of these units have now been in for close to 15 years.

These units use Copeland Scroll compressors just like everyone else uses. The controls (contactors, capacitors, etc.) are pretty much industry standard.

Coil construction is pretty much the same as everyone else as well. Expanded copper tube with aluminum fins.

I have seen coil failures on most brands of AC equipment, both residential and commercial. This is usually a result of the copper tubes being over expanded when they are "bumped out" to lock the aluminum fins on to the tubes, so this can and does happen but in my experience it is pretty rare.

Most of the issues that I see with Goodman units, or anyone's units, are related to poor installation. Poor installation can reduce the best equipment to junk in a very short time frame. If you have a compressor failure on a relatively new unit there is a good chance that it is a result of poor installation. One of the posts here mentions adding Freon every year. This is one of the biggest misconceptions about air conditioning systems. In a correctly installed system you should never have to add Freon.

What I suspect is the bigger problem is that the Goodman units, because of their lower prices, are used by a lot of builders, and in many cases, especially with track homes, the installations are about as bare boned as you can get. As a result there are a disproportionate number of failures and the blame goes to the equipment, not the installer.

Bottom line, I would worry more about the installation than the type of equipment being installed.

[faithfulFrank]

OldACGuy,

First, welcome to the forum.
Second, I agree with your post....it's nice to have one with much experience confirm what I posted earlier.

I recently bought a 15 year old home in Florida. I love the place, but it is not built like I'm used to. Anyway, in May I had a new A/C unit installed....when I checked the flex ductwork in the attic, I found a few cuts in it, leaking out cold A/C into my attic, and I found that the return was smaller then the supply, and I had to add another cold air return to better balance it.

The point is, it was like that for 15 years....I had to re-hang some duct to lessen restrictions, patch those cuts, and add the additional return to make it right. Adding that extra return was a bit of work, just because the dummy who built it did not do it right the first time....

Oh well.....it's right now.

Frank D.

[joeydias]

We had our house built less than two years ago and our Goodman coil in the attic has gone out twice.They are cheaply priced for a reason.Even our builder now admits they are pieces of junk.

[BigJon3475]

Sounds more like incompetence to me....Not you.

[Stew57]

Also another thing to remeber if you buy the equipment online and then start calling companies to install it....don't expect many to give you discounts. Some may even raise their fee and have it in writing....and they may also may tell you that though they stand behind their work they make no warranty claims since you bought the items through the net.
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A lot of installers get upset because they don't make any markup $$$ on the equipment. That would be fine if they stood behind their marked up equipment. A unit I had installed started leaking after 3 years. A screw had vibrated against the coil (contractor said factory defect). The manufacturer stood behind their part but noone stands behind the labor on the repair. This would not be stood for in the automotive industry (my field). I markup my parts (get discounts from distributers), but when a part fails I end up eating the labor. The markup on each part covers the few I have to warranty the labor for. If they can't install a customer supplied part for the same price, they LIED on thier bid. Should have bid less on the equipment and more on the install.

[Stew57]

I find it funny when the contractors talk bad about moon lighters doing bad work when the moon lighter is their own installer. When you can buy a 16seer goodman heat pump and air handler online for half of what the dealer wants and have his own installer install it for half of what he charger, and get the same labor warranty it seems to be a no brainer. To be fair though the installer I am using talked me into an 18 seer Luxaire because he could get it faster and the price was only slightly more.

[texdav]

From what I have seen Goodman seem to have more problem especially leaks than better brands, I am not just talikng about one unit as they are especsilly very common new housing in this area.Same goes for Coleman in new houses. Most I talked to say it is much like having to take the time to have a car taht is always having problems. Waranty or not ;here not having colling and waiting for repair ois a pain in the neck.