More reasonable estimate = YAY!

We've been having contractor drama lately. There have been problems getting people to show up (although it has been really cold in Pgh lately, so I understand that emergency calls take precedent). We got our first estimate on Monday last week.

First, a description of what has to be done. We need a new forced-air heating system (including all ductwork) to be installed (w/AC - I can't get D to compromise on the AC, I think the house does not get that hot) to heat the 2nd and third floors. The upside is that we're having the furnace put in on the 3rd floor, and most of the walls are down in the second floor. We don't care if they make a mess, as it is already, well, a construction zone. So running the duct-work, while still time-consuming, will be quicker than if, say, the walls were all up & we needed to pump all the air up through the first floor (10+ foot ceilings) to the 3rd floor & distribute through both the 2nd & 3rd floors.

The first estimate was $25-30k. This is considerably more than we expected to hear. The representative actually asked me if I was sitting down before she told me. I still need to call her back to confirm that this doesn't include solid gold ductwork, or perhaps they mistakenly thought that we wanted a system for the first floor as well.

Our second estimate came in today at a much more reasonable 10k. By the guy recommended by D's mom.

Just out of curiosity, I checked Angie's list to see if either person had any reviews. The first people seem to charge ~4x what everyone else does - lots of people turned them down because of this. The second guy (Fazio Heating) had a lot of positive reviews & 1 pretty negative one with pictures that did not look good. So, I've selected another company to call for another estimate, & we'll also try to goad our friend, Jeff, into getting his butt down here, taking some money from us, and doing a good job.

But, we'll have heat up there by mid-January :) And then we can put in walls.