Opinions on Amana Residential HVAC Equipment

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Amana is selling their HVAC offerings as American Pride label, built in Texas and Tennessee. They have a series of comparison PDF's on their website comparing their equipment to Trane, Lennox, Carrier, and Rheem.

There is a contractor here that is a high volume dealer of Amana American Pride, all sorts of promos like $2500 trade in allowance, $500 lowest price gaurantee.

Is the Amana stuff pretty good? I'm checking around on account of our 12 yr old Rheem setup is probably going have to be given the heave-ho pretty soon. I think our current system is 3 ton. Maybe 2.5, not sure.
 
Don't get to caught up on the actual equipment. Get caught up on the installer. The secret to long term reliability and comfort is having your equipment sized correctly and duct work design and airflow. Pick your installer carefully.
 
I'm pretty sure Amana A/C equipment is made by Goodman....it may even be Goodman's 'premium' line. I agree that the installation is more important than the brand.

PS: I believe that American Standard AC equipment is made by Trane and is Trane's budget brand.
 
Amana and Goodman are both owned by Daikin of Japan. As others have said, the quality of installation makes all the difference.
 
Installer over equipment every day of the week. Also most of the manufactures offer 10-12 yr warranties anyways.
 
Switch to full variable speed (DC Inverters) compressor and blower. Am inverter design can run at any speed and is totally silent compared to an AC model.

Inverter based heatpumps (works great for Heating and Cooling !) can be SEER 25 and higher rated.
 
Originally Posted By: henni
Switch to full variable speed (DC Inverters) compressor and blower. Am inverter design can run at any speed and is totally silent compared to an AC model.

Inverter based heatpumps (works great for Heating and Cooling !) can be SEER 25 and higher rated.



Not everyone lives in florida and has a heat pump
 
Originally Posted By: MParr
Amana and Goodman are both owned by Daikin of Japan. As others have said, the quality of installation makes all the difference.


Daikin bough Goodman a few years ago as their entry/builder's quality line, didn't know that Amana came with it.

Amana used to build quality appliances & A/C when it was in the hands of the Mennonites, once they sold it to...(can't remember who) quality was never pursued to the point that now it registers on the low end of the scale.
 
Originally Posted By: LoneRanger
I'm checking around on account of our 12 yr old Rheem setup is probably going have to be given the heave-ho pretty soon.
12 yrs? That's not very old. When's the last time the evaporator core was cleaned? Motor capacitor values were checked? Squirrel cage blower fins cleaned?

My 28 yr old Goodman still works fine. No leaks. Optimized duct system. I keep it clean inside & out.
 
Originally Posted By: nickaluch
Don't get to caught up on the actual equipment. Get caught up on the installer. The secret to long term reliability and comfort is having your equipment sized correctly and duct work design and airflow. Pick your installer carefully.
+1
 
Did a Goodman HVAC install a couple of years ago. Goodman often brings up the reliability rear end of brands but that's largely because any idiot can go down and instantly become a "dealer", just by buying parts. I had someone who knew what they were doing on the install. I've had absolutely no trouble with it.
 
If this helps, I had an Amana window unit A/C that was still working fine at over 20 years old when I sold the house. The plastic cover holding the filter broke was broke though.
 
Originally Posted By: nickaluch
Don't get to caught up on the actual equipment. Get caught up on the installer. The secret to long term reliability and comfort is having your equipment sized correctly and duct work design and airflow. Pick your installer carefully.


Totally agreed. A bad installer easily overcomes the best system available.

We have had an Amana system here for 6 years, excellent setup installed by a real expert. Dead quiet, super economical...
 
Originally Posted By: Schmoe
You should get more than 12 years out of that HVAC. Easily.


I agree on that but only from an equipment point of view, not economcial. It's because it uses the banned/restricted R22 freon. The cost to replace the micro leaking evaporator coil and then the cost to charge the system, and wait for the next leak somewhere else and track that one down. Versus putting in a new system with warranty and etc.

I expect to be selling the house within the year and so a new hvac system while being a sunk cost may help it move faster on the market. Or not, who knows.
 
I disagree a good bit on the brand/quality of equipment isn't as important as the installing contractor because:

1. Trane & Lennox have proven themselves to manufacturer/buy very reliable residential equipment over the last 40 years. Rheem & Carrier seems to be stepping their game up with Rheem really bringing it to the table lately. Then you are left with York, Bryant, Junk-I-Trol, I mean Goodman, Air-Ease, blah, blah, blah.

Some of the major manufacturers also run a low-grade (inexpensive) line and have 3-5 different brand names they market the same exact pieces of equipment under (not the premium quality but a low-grade quality.)

The upper class of equipment brands have strict dealer network requirements that contractors must meet in order to continue to be a 'dealer' for that brand. Notice that you will never see a high-quality contractor carrying Trane AND Lennox or Carrier. The manufacturers won't let residential contractors do that.

You WILL see contractors that DO NOT represent one of the major brands carrying 4-5 different "brands". This is comical to me, because it's usually all the same and they contractors do this to play price games with a homeowner.

I built my first house in 1996. I had a 2-1/2 ton basic Lennox 90% furnace and 9.0 SEER condensing unit installed. I sold that house in 2014 and that system, along with the 2-1/2 ton packaged unit I put in with an addition, was running like the day it was new. I am wondering if it is still in good shape today...

We bought a house in 2015 that was built in 1996 also. Had two Heil units and both were shot. I mean nothing left. Pretty drastic difference in condition of equipment, across two different brands installed basically at the same exact time. I replaced both with new Lennox split systems.
 
Amana/Goodman has some of the cheapest built units in my opinion, years abo when our company went from Carrier/Bryant to Goodman/Amana we noticed a big drop in quality. Flimsy cabinets, sharp edges everywhere, silver tape wouldn't stick to the cabinets even after applying spray glue, not very well built in my opinion, when we asked their people they said " we are more furnace expert not air handler people.
All brands now days have problems but all give the same warranty, 10 year parts and compressor.
Of course proper installation is very important too.

I would not fall for the rebate [censored], buy from a small company with a good reputation and don't pay for overhead, unless you're financing it and have no choice. Manufacturer and dealer rebates are all baloney.
 
No lie, Goodman "bought" Jan-I-Trol. Changed the name to Goodman.

I think Daikin buying Goodman was the stupiest move they have ever done. That was 4 years ago. All I heard back then was that Daikin was going to put Goodman through the paces and make them better than Trane/Lennox. Hasn't happened.

All those apartment builders and subdivision builders have a lot of power....they want a cheap system. Go look at any subdivision and apartment complex built in the last 10 years. Every system will be a Goodman.

Go look at some larger homes and those built by custom builders. You will see 90% Lennox, 10% Trane.
 
Daiken split systems are just Amanas with a Daiken badge, it's more like Goodman dragged Daiken down to it's level lol. I do like Daiken mini splits though.
 
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