I had the A/C unit replaced this summer. Now that its heat season, I had air blowing but no heat and called the installer to come look at it. I'm now skeptical of what I'm being told and need some advice.
I have a 2 zone, 1 stage system with a hybrid heat pump valve on the A/C unit and a gas furnace as alternate. The repairman that came mentioned that the reversing valve had been left wired for straight cooling only. That made me wonder later if that error had been deliberate to require a heat related repair. Trying to set it up correctly, he concludes the zone panel (Honeywell mini-zone) is not sending current to the heat pump reversing valve and needs to be replaced to the tune of $2800. My "inner cheap" was alarmed by that price. The other functions of the board were working. An alternative to replacing the panel would be to just not use the heat pump valve and go to a straight heat/ac setup. He said changing the wiring would take at least a half a day and cost $489. That also sounded wrong to me because originally changing over the wiring for the hybrid valve only took the original installer an hour or so.
I looked for similar zone panels online and found what I think is a similar Honeywell panel for the setup I have (Honeywell HZ322) and suppliers sell them online in the low $200s, but I don't really know anything about HVAC and wouldn't attempt to do it myself.
Questions:
Thanks.
I have a 2 zone, 1 stage system with a hybrid heat pump valve on the A/C unit and a gas furnace as alternate. The repairman that came mentioned that the reversing valve had been left wired for straight cooling only. That made me wonder later if that error had been deliberate to require a heat related repair. Trying to set it up correctly, he concludes the zone panel (Honeywell mini-zone) is not sending current to the heat pump reversing valve and needs to be replaced to the tune of $2800. My "inner cheap" was alarmed by that price. The other functions of the board were working. An alternative to replacing the panel would be to just not use the heat pump valve and go to a straight heat/ac setup. He said changing the wiring would take at least a half a day and cost $489. That also sounded wrong to me because originally changing over the wiring for the hybrid valve only took the original installer an hour or so.
I looked for similar zone panels online and found what I think is a similar Honeywell panel for the setup I have (Honeywell HZ322) and suppliers sell them online in the low $200s, but I don't really know anything about HVAC and wouldn't attempt to do it myself.
Questions:
- Is $2800 a ripoff or reasonable price for replacing a zone panel for a 1 stage, 2 zone hyrid heat pump system?
- Running the heat pump hybrid is supposed to save money, but I have a 90% gas furnace and reasonable gas rates in a Knoxville Tennessee climate. Depending upon the cost of a zone panel, could wiring to exclude the heat pump make sense or is that a shortsighted short term fix that I should avoid because the rest of the zone panel will die at some point anyway (it was probably installed in 2005)?
Thanks.