I enjoy giving praise to local businesses who provide a great product and excellent service. So this is my shout-out to Advantage Heating & Air Conditioning, who installed two Daikin Fit heat pumps at our house after our previous heat pumps reached the end of their useful life.
We’ve used Judson’s for most of the thirty-five years we’ve lived here in rural south Salem. They’re also a fine company, but in the past few years we’ve noticed a decline in the quality of their maintenance and repair work on our American Standard heat pumps. Won’t go into the details, as I’d rather praise Advantage than complain about Judson’s.
I do give credit to a Judson’s technician who told us about inverter heat pump technology when he came out on a repair call last December. Since I can’t remember all that he said, I’ll let this Google AI summary do the talking.
Inverter heat pump technology uses a variable-speed compressor and fan to precisely match heating or cooling output to the demand, unlike traditional systems that cycle on/off at full power, leading to significant energy savings, more consistent temperatures, faster heating/cooling, and quieter operation. This efficiency comes from continuously adjusting speed (like a dimmer switch) instead of constant full-blast starts, preventing energy surges and maintaining comfort, making them ideal for any climate, including cold weather.
The Judson’s guy also said that when a heat pump is about 15 years old, it usually makes sense to get a new one rather than pump money into repairing it. Since we have two heat pumps, one for our 2000 square foot main part of the house, and one for a 1200 square foot “apartment” part, we figured that it made sense to buy two new heat pumps, since the main house one was 16 years old and the apartment one was a few years younger.
After some Googling of local heat pump companies, Advantage caught our eye. Their reviews were considerably better than Judson’s and they seemed to be more attuned to modern heat pump inverter technology. So we called them up and a sales guy came out the next day.
He was pleasantly low key. Daikin is the only inverter brand they sell. I seem to recall that he said they are one of only a few Daikin dealers in Oregon. A Daikin Fit-e heat pump (the “e” stands for extended, meaning it functions at lower temperatures) reportedly works at 100% down to 15 degrees and at 70% down to zero degrees. That’s considerably better than our old heat pumps, which had to use heat strips at temperatures around freezing.
Since we were interested in getting these heat pumps, he went back to his office and looked up Marion County schematics of our house, after taking a look at our current heat pump setup. An estimate came back quickly: $16,399 for a 3-ton Daikin Fit-e heat pump for our main house (cost reduced by a $2,000 PGE rebate) and $17,099 for a 2-ton Daikin Fit-e heat pump for our apartment area.
Installation happened the next week. Advantage did a great job. The outdoor units shown above are considerably quieter than our old heat pumps, and they look much more modern. There’s a lot more technology involved with inverter heat pumps, so the installers have to really know what they’re doing.
The Daikin thermostats can be operated via a phone app. My wife sleeps in a bedroom in the main house. She likes the room a bit cooler at night, so she turns the heat down at night and up in the morning a degree or two via her iPhone. Snoring me sleeps in the apartment bedroom. I leave the heat pump at 70 degrees all the time. We did have a problem with the main house thermostat at first, as it was behaving erratically. Advantage sent someone out promptly and recalibrated the thermostat, which fixed the problem.
A big benefit of the Daikin heat pumps for me is that we were able to have both heat pumps connected to our Generac whole house emergency generator. Before, the heat pumps used too much electricity for both to be on the Generac, so the apartment heat pump was cut out of the Generac. Since the Daikin heat pumps use considerably less power, and the heat strips are used much less frequently, now my wife and I can both sleep in our bedrooms in a power outage. Before, I slept on an uncomfortable futon in the main house.
The Advantage Daikin heat pumps have a 12 year parts and labor warranty. That’s impressive, and speaks to the quality of Daikin. We also like the Advantage VIP maintenance program, which we got for the first year included with our purchase. The $18 a month charge is just a bit more each year than what we were paying Judson’s for a single annual maintenance visit, and Advantage VIP provides quite a few more benefits.
- 2 tune-ups per year (one for heating and one for cooling)
- Priority servicing if you had an emergency with your system
- 20% off parts and labor
- Discount on indoor air quality systems & duct cleanings
- No overtime fees
- Free standard filter with VIP tune-up visit
- Discounted trip charge fee
All in all, we feel we made a good choice by going with Advantage and the Daikin Fit-e heat pumps. When the nighttime temperature dipped into the mid to low 20’s recently, I’d check to see if the heat strips were on when I got out of bed for a late night bathroom visit. They never were. As the Google AI description said, both Daikin heat pumps are on most of the time, with low blower noise. That keeps the temperature pleasingly constant and seems to have evened out to some extent differences in temperature among various rooms in our house.
Discover more from Hinessight
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.