GOOD and BAD of High SEER Inverter HVAC!

hey guys before we get to the video for more tips and tricks in the heating and air industry please click that subscribe button thank you hey guys joshua griffin here serving the middle peninsula and the northern neck of virginia and wanted to do a video might be a little controversial i feel like out there in our industry there's probably more conflicting information about this one topic out there than just about anything else and that is because we are starting to see a transition starting to see a change in our industry and obviously new technology comes out and things like that and there's you know there's always going to be some push back against stuff and things like that so i wanted to do this video we're going to go through the pros and cons of where the industry's going with inverter systems communicating technology and such like that but the main reason i wanted to do it is because i've had some comments on our videos and i actually when we're looking at jobs every day we're up against other opinions and and at times misinformation and so one of the things i hear a lot when we first start talking about inverter technology and the pricing and things like that is folks like to talk about you know is the is the saving significant enough for you to pay all this extra money for a more efficient system the answer to that question is every house is different and it depends on your situation in our area there's people that have vacation homes and things like that and if you're not there during the winter time you're only there for a few months of the year or whatever you're not going to be there enough to see the mileage to get you know the savings that you need to get your money out of it so if you're you know if you're looking at that that obviously would play a role in that but if we're talking about your primary home we're looking at you know a system that does the majority of your heating and cooling in your home uh there's you know i call them old-timers but there's even younger guys that still have this old-school mentality and they'll say things like that you're not gonna get enough savings for you to for it to make sense for you to do an inverter system or to install a higher seer system right i just from my experience that's just simply not true i can tell you for me personally i had a 12 seer package unit on my house when i bought it and a couple years later we installed a split system so we went from a package unit outside that was exposed to the elements and we went up in sear and we brought the air handler in so we did a split system where there's an air handler inside and the outdoor unit is still outside and we've seen a significant savings again every house is different but at our house you know we've actually saved several hundred dollars uh there were winter months with that package unit that we were seeing electric bills almost six hundred dollars and now i we have not received a bill over three hundred dollars since we installed that system was that the case every month that we were seeing six hundred dollar power bills no but even if you're only seeing a hundred dollar savings every month with your inverter system then if you do the math you know an inverter system and it's going to be two thousand dollars higher than say a single stage or a multi-stage system then if you're saving a hundred dollars a month within two years you're going to be in the black right you know what if there's a five thousand dollar difference you know i've i've heard guys say you know you're not going to see the savings and what if there's a 5 000 difference well you know do the math in just over four years you're actually going to be saving more money on that system than you would have with a standard system so obviously it makes a difference on whether or not you're going to be using the system a lot if it's a second home or just a system that you don't use a lot maybe it's in a part of the house that you rarely turn on anyway then you know maybe it doesn't make sense to spend that extra money here's another thing if you're planning on selling the house soon so in two years you're planning on selling the house then maybe you wouldn't see enough savings for it to make sense for you to put a 20 seer system in there so i hear all the time in our industry guys will say well you know it just doesn't make sense it's too expensive they'll never see the savings in my experience that's just simply not true if you have a technician telling you that or a contractor telling you that maybe just maybe they're trying to tell you that because they haven't installed enough inverter systems to know better and maybe you should get a second opinion from a company that has installed several of them and they still may shoot you straight they may say you know yeah we install inverter systems but you know you're just for your particular situation it makes more sense to do you know this or that right so you know getting multiple opinions uh but you know if you got that old school mentality if you're hearing you know it just doesn't make sense uh it chances are you got somebody that just hasn't installed enough of them to know better in my experience i get people all the time commenting on my videos telling me what i'm wrong about and i'm sure somebody will tell me i'm wrong on that but i can tell you from personal experience and you know in business experience that the inverter systems are worth what you spend extra money on another argument that i'll hear from some of those guys is the parts are a lot higher and i have to agree with that as time has gone on we have seen a humongous shift in our industry where things like fan motors when i first started in the industry you know you could carry four different motors on your service van and you could pretty much get anybody rolling in the middle of the night uh with just about any situation just about we could get them rolling with those four motors two outdoor motors with two different rpm speeds and two indoor motors with two different voltages and you know multi taps and stuff like that so i could do a rescue motor and get those folks back on those days are starting to end they haven't completely ended but they're well on their way so now when you look at things like variable speed motors you know some of these manufacturers are charging five six seven eight hundred dollars for just the motor so are we seeing a significant price increase across the board for parts and things like that yes but i would argue when we're talking about inverter systems if they're installed properly they actually have less wear and tear and fewer breakdowns in my experience now somebody else tells you something different and that's not true in their experience then that's their experience but in my experience we install these inverter systems and years will go by before i hear from those folks again uh you know if they're especially if they're doing a proper maintenance to their system and things like that that's the only time we see them after that so let's talk real quick you know i'm going to get into more pros and cons but let's talk real quick why i think that is why are we seeing less wear and tear on a inverter system versus a single stage system well to make a really long complicated subject i'm just going to give you the short version and that is imagine if here up here is the top operating speed of your heating and air system and then down here is the bottom well if you have a single stage system it's either off or it's on okay so you're just seeing this constant you know when it comes on it jumps all the way up here when it goes off it falls all the way back down and multi-stage systems you know there will be like a 65 or 70 percent stage sometimes there's several stages and then there's the top right and the the idea is you know you're still you know jumping up to there or jumping all the way up to here whatever stage that it jumps to you're seeing that you know still it's a spike in energy that there's capacitors and things like that to help the system get up and going but that is i that is where you see a lot of your energy consumption that spike in energy when it first comes on with inverter systems there's you know there's off and then there's one and there's a lot of in between okay so there's gonna be times especially like on a mild day on a mild day with your heating and air system with a single stage it's still off or on remember you know but with an inverter system that thing might be just barely running and it's keeping your house comfortable okay sorry if you hear my dogs in the background so obviously that is part of the reason it saves energy but i in my experience have found that that's also part of the reason that we're seeing less wear and tear on the system you know when it's having to go you know that's a lot on that system at times right but with that inverter system imagine it's just barely going down the road uh you know if you're driving a car and you're only going through a 25 mile an hour speed versus a car that goes 100 miles an hour but then comes to a screeching halt and then goes up to 100 miles an hour again and it comes to a screeching halt so that's kind of the analogy i would say we're even seeing some companies come out with inverter systems and higher seer systems and they're putting lifetime warranties on their equipment lifetime warranties on the compressor lifetime warranties on this or that they wouldn't be doing that if they thought that they were going to have tons of breakdowns and things like that so the other thing i'll say is if you have somebody that has you know had a lot of issues with this or that maybe it's the install in fact i would argue that most times it is the install whoever installed it they you know cut some corners or they didn't do something correct and that's why you're having issues the the couple issues that we have had uh with the inverter systems that we're installing have always been just tweaking something here or there updating the firmware on the thermostat or you know changing a dip switch on a unit things like that uh but we don't see significant huge we have not replaced an inverter compressor in these higher seer systems now i've seen some replacing ductless units but that's a different story another argument that i've heard recently is folks are saying something to the effect of well they haven't perfected the technology and i guess i would probably agree with that but in my mind saying that they haven't perfected the technology it doesn't give it a pass it doesn't mean you need to fully avoid that technology uh it's like saying well the internet they're perfecting the internet right now so you probably shouldn't use the internet well you know they probably are perfecting it you know they're changing things websites are being built whatever it's not perfect but it's still a great technology right so that would be my argument to that anyone that says that they're perfecting the technology and so they wouldn't install any of those systems again in my experience they probably have just not installed enough of them to know better so real quick they're a higher seer and obviously they're more efficient the other thing i'll tell you about an inverter system is you know when they're comparing apples to apples with these systems i did a whole video about why they're gonna do away with sear because they're having to compare these systems apples to apples when they're fully running but with inverter systems they're not running at full speed all the time so there's times where again it's just barely running and it's saving you money so they're high efficient they're less expensive than geothermal systems if you say that about geothermal i would maybe agree with you if you said hey the money that you're going to save over the years you're not going to get enough mileage out of it for you to make sense for you to install a geothermal system i would maybe agree with that you know again every house is different and that may be true but when we're talking about just going up from say a 14 16 single stage system up to say an 18 or 20 seer inverter system not the same thing you're gonna see quite a bit of savings there another pro to inverter systems is in general they're better at humidity so if we're talking about those inverter systems and they're communicating technology and the variable speed fan motor those systems are barely running at times and they're still removing humidity from your home so they do a better job of removing humidity in fact a lot of ductless units which oh by the way most ductless units are inverter technology when we're talking about ductless units a lot of them have that dehumidifier mode they might call it something different different verbiage but in general it's you know a lot of them will have like a little raindrop or something like that on the remote you put it in that mode and it's dehumidifying your home the last thing i'll say as far as pros is just making sure that you're finding a good company somebody that's installed them somebody that has a manufacturer behind them with some good infrastructure a lot of the horror stories that i hear are people saying well you know my contractor won't call me back now i've called the manufacturer i'm having these issues etc etc and you know that sounds like a nightmare obviously of course you could have that with a single stage system too but when we're talking about inverter systems with communicating technology it's not as simple as just getting the refrigerant right or something like that you would have with a single stage system there could be lots of different things there are more bells and whistles and you're trying to get all that straight for the system to run tip top so let's talk about the cons obviously i'm a fan of what we're installing i would even go so far as to say we sold more inverter systems last year than anything else and so obviously i'm a fan but let's talk about a couple cons a couple bad right if we're talking about the good and the bad let's talk a couple bad things well one thing is your options on thermostats are limited so if you are a fan of a particular type of thermostat we have homeowners all the time that'll say well you know i i want this particular thermostat i had it in my house or i like it or whatever the reason is when you're talking about communicating technology your options are limited in fact with some manufacturers you only have one or two options so if you have a high sear system you have to install their communicating thermostat and that does limit your options a little bit i would say that if that's a concern of yours get your contractor to put that thermostat in your hand before you buy it we've done that before if we've got somebody on the ropes or they're thinking about this or that or whatever and they want to hold the thermostat see what it's going to look like on their wall and so on we can do that and then the other con that i would say is there are more bells and whistles on the systems and a lot of these old-timers when they're using this old-school mentality the one thing that i would maybe agree with them on is there are more bells and whistles technically more things that can go wrong and it's sort of like if you're comparing a high efficiency furnace like a 95 furnace to an 80 furnace there's more bells and whistles there's more things that can go wrong there are pressure switches that maybe the 80 furnace doesn't have or whatever there's more bells and whistles there so in general i would agree with that now again i would go right back to what i was saying before is there's less wear and tear on the system so even if you have to end up replacing a sensor or a switch or something like that you're in a lot of cases you're not replacing big components like the compressor or even the coils because the coils are getting less abuse too that's the thing the pressures are not when you're going from a single stage system when it's running way up here all the time that coil is experiencing a lot of high pressures a lot of abuse i would say right that they're not seeing with an inverter system in a lot of cases so just to wrap up sorry this video was so long but if you are in the market for a new heating and air system definitely talk to a couple different folks you know if you've got somebody telling you some of the things that i just said oh they haven't perfected the technology or you're never going to save enough money for it to make sense or whatever in my experience those things are just simply not true get a few opinions talk to a few different contractors compare apples to apples and make a decision that makes most sense for you in my experience i would say overall when folks are trying to decide what brand they should install or what seer rating or all that stuff i would say in the long run you're not focusing on the right thing in the grand scheme of things it just doesn't matter as much as it does on who you pick to install it so i would say find a good contractor someone with good reviews someone that cares someone that's going to talk to you and somebody that can tell you why they're selling you what they're selling if someone asks me hey why do you sell what you sell i can tell them exactly why i sell what i sell in my market i sell what i sell because it's the best that this and that right but you know not every market's the same don't ask me what brand you should install because again you're focused on the wrong thing the last thing i'll say is if you're in the market for a new heating and air system and you're in virginia and the middle peninsula or the northern neck give griffin air a call we'll give you a free estimate and the best warranty in the area but if you're not in our coverage area check out my new website i've even got a little banner up here new hvac guide dot com check out that site because we've put so much information on there it's as if i wrote a book telling folks hey here's the good and the bad avoid this or that i've even got a whole page called no knows things to stay away from and so before you spend thousands check out that website and finally for more tips and tricks in the heating and air industry click that subscribe button thanks for watching

Channel: HVAC Guide for Homeowners

Views: 48,527

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Id: 7pA23BGW6QU

Length: 18min 35sec (1115 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 20 2021