After 20 years the a/c finally failed. And the Carrier furnace wasn't getting any younger. So time to face the situation and get all new gear (gas furnace/a/c system/thermostat). After getting multiple quotes from all the normal folks in Vienna/Mclean, I selected Air Control LLC. And they did really good work.

Why did I pick them? Three reasons:

(1) I liked the Amana SEER 16 two stage gear (ASXC160361/AMVC96080) more than Carrier (but the Carrier Cor thermostat is better than Amana thermostat – see notes below), and I didn't want any Lenox. The Amana lifetime warrantee on the heat exchanger and compressor helped seal the deal. Air Control also gave me two extra years warrantee on their labor. That was good on their part: typically, giving extra warrantee time costs nothing, but it gave me the confidence to pick Air Control LLC. They also gave me a few extra filters!!!!(thank you!).

(2) They came out, gave me good understanding of the options, and their price about the same as all the others. All the prices are similar -- so price is not really the factor here.

(3) They also gave me an upgraded thermostat (ComfortNet™ CTK04) which has a very nice graphical interface, allows you to control the fan speed when in circulate mode, and shows the error codes. All that is way cool (hahaha). The only downside is that if you want to get your thermostat on wifi, you have to purchase a Honeywell RedLINK Internet Gateway for another $90. That is a pain. The carrier Cor thermostat is wifi out of the box. Amana/Goodman/Honeywell need to update their gear so wifi is built into the thermostat without any other device beyond your own wireless router/access point, of course. I had to remove a my current wifi thermostat to use the CTK04, and now I can’t use my iphone or pad to change the temp, fan speed, schedule, etc. But the CTK04 is really good, it just doesn’t support wifi access out of the box. Oh well. I may not miss the wifi given the sweet user interface on the CTK04 thermostat itself.

So nothing goes as planned. There are always surprises. We had a few during installation, but the install team (John/Fred/+) was great to work with. They knew what they were doing, and did nice professional work. There is no way to overstate the importance of professional / neat work. The SEER efficiency you want is driven by the installation quality way more than the manufacture’s rating.

Ideally, when you pick a vendor for your HVAC work, you would interview the install team. They are the people who REALLY determine if the equipment works right or not. Good installation makes low grade equipment sing, and poor installation makes top end equipment suck. But you never get to vet the install team, and they are the most important part of the process. Weird, hun? You live with the install guy’s work as long as you own the house, but we don’t interview the installation team before we spend our hard earned money. So the most important part of major HVAC work is almost left to chance -- and now you know about a good installation team. Installer John is the real deal -- he takes pride in the finished installed product.

What is the house like now with the new Amana A/C system? One word: lovely. The old Carrier unit used to come on with a big thump and whoosh. Sort of like its own shock and awe. Then a lot of air movement, drop in temperature (yea!), then too cold (ummm), then off. Repeat as required. The new Amana 3-ton stuff is sooo quiet. As a two stage unit with low speed continuous circulation, you never really feel it cutting on and off. The old unit would actually wake me up at night when it cut on. Not now. The new Amana stuff is blissful.

So fine. Nice work Air Control LLC.