Wow Andre, we are living in parallel universes. I don't have an answer for you, but here is my story:

I live in 1500 sf, 2-story colonial in Central NJ. I too bought a house from an 80+ year-old widow, but she had no central air. Because the furnace needed replacement, I decided to get a furnace replacement and central ac installation at the same time. After getting 4 estimates, I went with a somewhat higher-priced Carrier installer because it was personally recommended to me and it was one of the few installers that had no BBB complaints in the last 3 years. So after a consult with the sales rep, I agreed to go with a 2.5 ton 15 Seer Performance ac unit, a 70,000 BTU Infity 80 AFUE furnace, an Aprilaire air filter and an Aprilaire humidifier. For this he quoted about $10,300 installed (with new chimney flue). The ac coil would be stacked over the furnace in the basement, and we would use the existing forced air heat ducts for supplying the AC.

When I met the foreman of the installation crew for the first time at the house, he asked me if I were flipping the house because the installation was not proper. He said that proper installation called for a blower in the attic with a copper line from the compressor beside the house to the attic. This was the first I'd heard of it.

So I go back to the salesman, and he admits that he forgot to tell me that I would have problems with cooling the second floor from the basement. He said that he was thrown-off by the fact that I had asked him about a specific Carrier AC unit before he measured the house so he just gave me what I wanted. He acknowledged that he skipped a step in evaluating my needs, and that he forgot to put in the proposal that upstairs would be 10-15 degrees warmer than down on hot days and nights.

After some negotiating back and forth, he offered to sell me a blower and install it in the attic and to put all new ducts for ceiling vents in every room (8, a return grid and to credit me $700 for the for the installation of the copper and the coil in the basement for $8,250. This seems exorbitant to me. This $8250 is on top of the $10,300 for the furnace and compressor purchase installation.

Query: Is $18,500 too much to pay for this job, i.e. the purchase of the new furnace with installation into the existing ducts (with 1-year air filter, new chimney liner and in-line humidifier) and the purchase of the AC with attic installation and 8 new ceiling ducts and return grid?

Thanks for any comments.

good lord. My prior home was a 1400 sq ft split with no central air, only oild baseboard heat. We had a central air unit put in the yard, blower in the attic (it just fit) and dropped flexible ducts through the ceilings (and two closets to get to the lower level. It cooled wonderfully. It was a Janitrol unit and cost about $3000...that was 15 year ago but still!

Hello,
The answer to the first post, maybe, yes to additional dampers. The problem with multiple stories is balancing between the floors. You have the right idea, but you probably need an air flow measurement fan to adjust the house. If the ducts were set up as a zoned system, it will take many days of adjustment and tweaking, but eventually you can adjust the air flow. The best solution is to have a separate system for each floor. Builders do not do this because of the headaches involved. Potential buyers do not recognize the difference if they have never had a 2-story house. Once inside the house, they find cooling is uneven between floors. Cooling adjustments are usually different from heating. This is a continual problem changing for the season. Single story homes do not usually have the adjustment problems.

To the second person. Find a different contractor. They are probably originally overcharging you by double and they want to up charge to $18000. I know your labor is higher in NJ, but that is out of sight. I doing an upgrade to a larger sized system that will require extensive duct work, at what I consider full price, the job, which I will probably start next week will still only run $5000 for a 4-ton system. I am doing a 3-ton tomorrow or Saturday for about $2700. It is a one day job that I budgeted 1.5 days.

Get more bids. Never do a job until you have 3 bids that specify the same basic work. At that point you can get more bids if you donÂt like the price or renegotiate one of the first bids.

uhh, I think my first question was...are there usually dampers going to the second floor. If that is typical, I will keep looking....if not, then in theory, if I shut all the dampers on the first floor, the second should start to cool down...then I should start to open dampers on the first floor here or there in the hot spots on the first floor.

Am I any better off hiring someone to do this...or would they need to stop out every day for a week!

im confused , so why did you go to the person with less complaints on file and you still got burned............... did any other sales person tell you that up stairs wont get as cool as downstairs

If you use someone else, expect them there off and on for 1 year, to adjust the vents. It may sound long, but as the cooling changes to heat, the adjustments will need to be changed. Eventually you will find a comfortable midpoint.

I did say yes, there should be some dampers between ground and second floor. Or you may dampen the ground floor to let more air to upstairs.

Bob,

If I find the second floor ducting, and If I see dampers,it sounds like you are saying I might as well adjust them myself and try to find the midppoint....can I screw anything up.

Might I be better off having an HVAC out who could perhaps identify everythung for me and perhaps make a better guess where everything should be set based on there experience...then I could take it from there.

I just do not want to make things worse.

I am thinking about creating a partial second story house which will be 1,144 square feet. Will need to move one of the furnace's since it is above the section where the second story will sit. Is it better to move the furnace down from the attic into the garage? Or would it be better to move the furnace to the second story attic?