janitrol?

[philip2000]

I had a janitrol 2.5(?) ton 13 seer unit installed(uses r22) 4 years ago and have had a few problems with it. (blower motor had to be replaced 2 years after installation and then the place where all the wires contact(don't know the technical name) had to be replaced.
Is this common for ALL brands of central airconditioners or is this brand a poor brand?
thanks
philip

[geoken]

Originally posted by philip2000:
I had a janitrol 2.5(?) ton 13 seer unit installed(uses r22) 4 years ago and have had a few problems with it. (blower motor had to be replaced 2 years after installation and then the place where all the wires contact(don't know the technical name) had to be replaced.
Is this common for ALL brands of central airconditioners or is this brand a poor brand?
thanks
philip

[geoken]

Originally posted by philip2000:
I had a janitrol 2.5(?) ton 13 seer unit installed(uses r22) 4 years ago and have had a few problems with it. (blower motor had to be replaced 2 years after installation and then the place where all the wires contact(don't know the technical name) had to be replaced.
Is this common for ALL brands of central airconditioners or is this brand a poor brand?
thanks
philip

Janitrol is the cheapest brand of HVAC equipment on the market. The problems you have incurred are normal for them, hate to say it but you got what you paid for. Next time dont shop for price shop for quality and value.

[philip2000]

my wife had this installed(before i married her) and she wasn't given a choice of unit.
do we have recourse in taking the installer to court because he didn't offer her different brands?

[fireman@eoni.com]

Get real, you think the service agency is at fault because she did not take the time to get a second opinion or fully investigate avalilable options before the purchase of the equipment? She apparantly bought cheap, she got what she paid for. This time, do your homework before choosing a product and a contractor. Get at least 3 bids, don't use the cheapest one. The bids should list the size of the unit, based upon the heating/cooling needs of your area. Bids should include contractors registration/lisence numbers, insurance and bond. Check this information, eliminate those who do not provide it. Ask for references, check it out. If you choose not to investigate the equipment and service, don't whine, you got what you deserved.

My chosen field of work is fire prevention/suppression. We constantly see poor materials and workmanship, usually because people made the decesion to choose the cheapest bid.

Douglas Hicks
General Fire Equipment Co of Eastern Oregon, Inc
Oregon Contractor Registration # 78491

[tcaps]

Originally posted by philip2000:
I had a janitrol 2.5(?) ton 13 seer unit installed(uses r22) 4 years ago and have had a few problems with it. (blower motor had to be replaced 2 years after installation and then the place where all the wires contact(don't know the technical name) had to be replaced.
Is this common for ALL brands of central airconditioners or is this brand a poor brand?
thanks
philip

[thepapabear]

It has been several years since I was in the business (sales), but the responses you have gotten are right on. Janitrol (aka Goodman) is one of the cheapest in the business. Having said that, I recently had a changeout (replacing old equipement) of our entire system and we went with Goodman. This would not normally be my first choice, but my cousin, who teaches HVAC at a community college and has been in the business for most of 30 years, talked me into it. I was free to choose almost any brand. He has had good service from several hundred Goodman installations and they do have a very good warranty, so he is the technical expert and I defered to his judgement. The system has now been in service at our home for more than 15 months and it is working well. I still would prefer TRANE or other national brand, but so far he has been right. By the way, the longer warranty offered by some brands can be an indication of poorer quality control from the manufacturer, but not always.
The replacement of a blower, as you stated, could have happened with any of the other brands as well, but Janitrol, etc. may have more frequent incidences of this type of problem. The wiring problem sounds a bit unusual to me, [img]redface.gif[/img] but again I was in sales not service . Still if one of my clients had such a problem my first question would be the quality of the installer not so much the equipment on this one.
Hope this was of some help, and since there are a lot of professionals on this forum I would tend to listen to them. I just put in my 2 cents worth.

[osprey7]

I've been in the hvac bus. for 30years and agree with PAPA BEAR

[swamp]

If you fail to cover the unit in the winter, snow, rain, and ice will cause the motor and the contactor to fail. I would much rather sell you a $200 fan motor than a $12 cover.

[Gilligan]

You say this unit has been in service for about four years?? Did anyone regularly change the filter and have the unit periodically service. Many blower motors requre an annual oiling of their bearings to remain functional. If these are skipped your filter clogs and is sucked into your coil then the blower motor fails from abuse and over load in about four to five years. Or a poor service technician improperly replaces the blower motor capacitor with one the is too strong for the motor causing the unit to overheat. Or a undesirable technician decides they can make more money telling the uneducated that the motor has failed when in fact only the starting capacitor is the problem. I'm a property maintenance craftsman on a 35 year old apartment complex with 900 units. Many of the older ones are Janitrol. Two of my residents have been with us over 20 years and are religious about our servicing their units. These two 15 year old Janitrols are working as well as many units two or three years new. On the other side I have seen many Janitrols fail this summer, over 30 and almost always we can see where no preventative maintenance occured on the unit or improper maintenance was done on the unit causing it to fail. Good preventative maintenance will always be cheeper than unit replacements in the long run.