As a heating and air conditioning professional i am consistently asked by homeowners what brand is the best. I have worked on every brand out there, and installed most of them as well. In my experience the following makes the brand on a furnace less important:
a) Every manufacturer subs out the manufacture of most parts you find in a furnace. For example; no brand stamps out their own circuit boards. They tell White Rogers what they want to relays to do and White Rogers makes the board. In essence; no matter the brand, White rogers makes the circuit boards. This is true with many parts inside a furnace, with varying manufacturers making the different components that go into a furnace.
b) Furnace manufactures copy designs from each other. If say, Coleman comes out with a feature on their furnace it won't be long until every other manufacturer does the same.
c) All furnace manufacturers carry the same parts warranties on their products. Again if Coleman has a 10 year parts warranty, all the other brands will as well.
d) 99% of all customer complaints are do to the quality of installation and not to manufacturer defects. Most of the time the homeowner will not even know this because their installer will blame all homeowner issues on a bad product, not on their own installation.
So with that said here are my favorite brands from my experience as a repair and install technician. the criteria i use is number of repairs, ease of repairs, cost of doing the repairs, installation costs and number of consumer options.
1) Coleman.
They make a solid long lasting furnace at a reasonable price point. Supply houses for parts are plentiful and everyone can work on them.
2) Trane/American standard.
Though Trane had some Circuit board issues in the past, their current furnaces are well built. Most technicians are familiar with them and repair parts are fairly easy to get.
3) Carrier/Payne/Bryant.
Carrier brands had a run of bad heat exchangers thru the 90s and early 2000s. They have learned from the mistakes and currently make a good product. Their repair costs are a little higher than the others, and again most techs can work on them easy enough.
4) Rheem
Rheem has a decent product at a fairly good price point. Regular maintenance is important as Rheem furnaces seem to need more repairs than the other brands, their parts are easy to get and the repairs are not overly expensive.
5) Lennox
Lennox makes a high quality product. they are the most expensive to install and repair. Few techs are familiar with the Lennox product, so repairs often take longer and are more expensive.
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