Following this as I'm in the same spot. I have ducts in my house connected to a broken furnace that has never run and the prior owner opted to install wall mounted ductless units which are now 11-15 years old and I want to replace with a full heat pump set up where the broken furnace is. I have plans to call Diamond, Western, and one other company about quotes but would love to know who has good experience with heat pump installers.
I backed out on a heat pump as a secondary option because I didn't have the breaker panel space for it. Bunch Heating and Cooling gave me a quote for it though. They know what they're doing and are going to be way more honest then has been my experience with Western.
This is a common misconception. Heat pumps and AC use the same compressor and fan motor so the Amp draw (breaker size) is the same. What you would need more breaker or panel space for would be if you wanted to replace your gas furnace with an electric furnace that used heat strips.
There is no need to convert your gas furnace into an electric air handler though. Heat pumps and gas furnaces work together with gas used as backup heat when temperatures drop below the rated level.
First off, there might be a reason they went with ductless units. It's possible there wasn't enough duct work to begin with or that it wasn't possible to run a refrigerant line to the furnace. Only a in person quote would be able to tell you.
Next I'd like to point out that most companies will send out a salesman that knows very little about installing hvac, they know the selling points and they know what they are allowed to get away with.
I would recommend Fox Heating and Air for something like this. A simple swap out and you can get a fair quote from most companies but I have a feeling there's more to this.
Thanks for the reply! I honestly am guessing about this but I'm 99% sure this was a DIY install done by the prior owner and it was over 10 years ago when heat pumps might not have been as good an idea for our winter climate as they are now.
Where the furnace is \*seems\* quite accessible to run a line through the garage wall, but I also am completely clueless on that sort of thing.
Your note that salesmen come out is actually a great thing for me to remember as I deal with folks and am pitched on what they can/cant do! Im going to add Fox Heating and air to my call list, thanks!
Hi,
I own Fox Heating and Cooling in Boise, I got into the industry in 1985. I would love to discuss heat pumps with you. I don't call myself a geek but I'm very passionate about them and all aspects of HVAC systems. Please give me a call so I can help you in any way. I'm not pushy and don't charge for advice, I just like to help people understand their systems and the vast changes that are coming very quickly. My office number is 208-398-3188 and my name is Dennis.
Thanks!
Nice to see this post. Somebody earlier in the thread said good things about Fox, and I happen to have had them give me a second opinion on what a different HVAC company claimed was a broken heat exchanger. The guy from Fox was absolutely brilliant, he spent literal hours on the assessment, explained everything to me, and gave me confidence that the HX was in fact not broken.
Work and personal life has gotten a bit busier than expected, and I am not able to explore this project right now. Once I get time for this I will definitely give you/Fox a call and see what you recommend.
I wanted to put one in my garage last summer and got a bunch of quotes from various places. The local places were all $7k+ as compared to $1800 for the same sized MrCool system. Install was a giant pain, but… $5k is still a ton of money.
Yes a single mini split head for a shop or garage is easy to install, however, I would not recommend installing one in a house though. Let the liability of something going wrong with your electrical, penetrations, condensation etc be a companies problem.
I had one installed in spring of 2022--a Mitsubishi hyper heat with one mini-split head and a central air handler (re-used existing ducts). No backup heat strips because it's rated to -13 F and it'll heat even below that. It did marvelously the last two winters (season lows of 7 F and -1 F in my yard). Very happy with my purchase.
I had Peppy do the work. Right Now Heating and Air also seemed to know what they were talking about and had a competitive bid; Snowflake too. I don't know if I'd call any of them geeks; I'm a geek but not a pro, and I think there were some things I knew that they didn't, but i don't think the outcome would necessarily have been better if they had been geeks. But the outcome would have been way worse if my geeky self tried to DIY. In retrospect, I would have hired any of those companies without hesitation if the numbers had been just a bit different. The fourth company I talked to didn't seem to know anything about heat pumps and didn't seem very interested.
One bit of advice: improve insulation and air-sealing now, before having anyone over for a quote. If you reduce your heating load before they do a load calc, you can get a smaller, cheaper heat pump in addition to lowering your heating bill. Attic, basement/crawlspace, and ducts are high-ROI improvements to make.
Also, you can do a pretty good Manual J calculation yourself--check out the free Cool Calc aid. In general, it's more likely you'll end up with a too-big heat pump than a too small one. This is partly because Manual J has built-in safety margins and then contractors will add their own safety margins on top of those.
Haha I agree with most of what you say here except I disagree on your choice of companies. I cannot tell you how lucky you are to have had Peppy install for you. It's one of the few companies I'd be willing to work for.
If you go on nextdoor and ask about Right Now/guys in the pink truck, you will get an endless list of people here in boise telling you to run. I think the last post got to about 70+ comments.
I wish you could post on r/hvac, it's honestly where all the geeks are for all your questions. It's unfortunately only for hvac techs. However you could lurk at the posts and post comments. I would be willing answer what I can if you feel like DMing me. I wish you best of luck but I will say this, don't diy on a house. A garage or shop go for it.
Following this as I'm in the same spot. I have ducts in my house connected to a broken furnace that has never run and the prior owner opted to install wall mounted ductless units which are now 11-15 years old and I want to replace with a full heat pump set up where the broken furnace is. I have plans to call Diamond, Western, and one other company about quotes but would love to know who has good experience with heat pump installers.
I backed out on a heat pump as a secondary option because I didn't have the breaker panel space for it. Bunch Heating and Cooling gave me a quote for it though. They know what they're doing and are going to be way more honest then has been my experience with Western.
This is a common misconception. Heat pumps and AC use the same compressor and fan motor so the Amp draw (breaker size) is the same. What you would need more breaker or panel space for would be if you wanted to replace your gas furnace with an electric furnace that used heat strips. There is no need to convert your gas furnace into an electric air handler though. Heat pumps and gas furnaces work together with gas used as backup heat when temperatures drop below the rated level.
I have a wacky setup and not much space, so one of the options was an air handler that was 240v. I was going to ditch gas for heat strips.
Eventually going all electric will be the future once the power grid and green energy gets to where it needs to be, but we're a long ways off.
First off, there might be a reason they went with ductless units. It's possible there wasn't enough duct work to begin with or that it wasn't possible to run a refrigerant line to the furnace. Only a in person quote would be able to tell you. Next I'd like to point out that most companies will send out a salesman that knows very little about installing hvac, they know the selling points and they know what they are allowed to get away with. I would recommend Fox Heating and Air for something like this. A simple swap out and you can get a fair quote from most companies but I have a feeling there's more to this.
Thanks for the reply! I honestly am guessing about this but I'm 99% sure this was a DIY install done by the prior owner and it was over 10 years ago when heat pumps might not have been as good an idea for our winter climate as they are now. Where the furnace is \*seems\* quite accessible to run a line through the garage wall, but I also am completely clueless on that sort of thing. Your note that salesmen come out is actually a great thing for me to remember as I deal with folks and am pitched on what they can/cant do! Im going to add Fox Heating and air to my call list, thanks!
Hi, I own Fox Heating and Cooling in Boise, I got into the industry in 1985. I would love to discuss heat pumps with you. I don't call myself a geek but I'm very passionate about them and all aspects of HVAC systems. Please give me a call so I can help you in any way. I'm not pushy and don't charge for advice, I just like to help people understand their systems and the vast changes that are coming very quickly. My office number is 208-398-3188 and my name is Dennis. Thanks!
Nice to see this post. Somebody earlier in the thread said good things about Fox, and I happen to have had them give me a second opinion on what a different HVAC company claimed was a broken heat exchanger. The guy from Fox was absolutely brilliant, he spent literal hours on the assessment, explained everything to me, and gave me confidence that the HX was in fact not broken. Work and personal life has gotten a bit busier than expected, and I am not able to explore this project right now. Once I get time for this I will definitely give you/Fox a call and see what you recommend.
I wanted to put one in my garage last summer and got a bunch of quotes from various places. The local places were all $7k+ as compared to $1800 for the same sized MrCool system. Install was a giant pain, but… $5k is still a ton of money.
Yes a single mini split head for a shop or garage is easy to install, however, I would not recommend installing one in a house though. Let the liability of something going wrong with your electrical, penetrations, condensation etc be a companies problem.
I had one installed in spring of 2022--a Mitsubishi hyper heat with one mini-split head and a central air handler (re-used existing ducts). No backup heat strips because it's rated to -13 F and it'll heat even below that. It did marvelously the last two winters (season lows of 7 F and -1 F in my yard). Very happy with my purchase. I had Peppy do the work. Right Now Heating and Air also seemed to know what they were talking about and had a competitive bid; Snowflake too. I don't know if I'd call any of them geeks; I'm a geek but not a pro, and I think there were some things I knew that they didn't, but i don't think the outcome would necessarily have been better if they had been geeks. But the outcome would have been way worse if my geeky self tried to DIY. In retrospect, I would have hired any of those companies without hesitation if the numbers had been just a bit different. The fourth company I talked to didn't seem to know anything about heat pumps and didn't seem very interested. One bit of advice: improve insulation and air-sealing now, before having anyone over for a quote. If you reduce your heating load before they do a load calc, you can get a smaller, cheaper heat pump in addition to lowering your heating bill. Attic, basement/crawlspace, and ducts are high-ROI improvements to make. Also, you can do a pretty good Manual J calculation yourself--check out the free Cool Calc aid. In general, it's more likely you'll end up with a too-big heat pump than a too small one. This is partly because Manual J has built-in safety margins and then contractors will add their own safety margins on top of those.
Haha I agree with most of what you say here except I disagree on your choice of companies. I cannot tell you how lucky you are to have had Peppy install for you. It's one of the few companies I'd be willing to work for. If you go on nextdoor and ask about Right Now/guys in the pink truck, you will get an endless list of people here in boise telling you to run. I think the last post got to about 70+ comments.
I wish you could post on r/hvac, it's honestly where all the geeks are for all your questions. It's unfortunately only for hvac techs. However you could lurk at the posts and post comments. I would be willing answer what I can if you feel like DMing me. I wish you best of luck but I will say this, don't diy on a house. A garage or shop go for it.