Location: Hartford-Getchell Road, Lake Stevens, WA 98258
Call Date: February 16, 2026
First Visit: February 16, 2026
Project Completion: February 19, 2026
Lead Technician: Robert, 7+ years, licensed HVAC technician
System Before: 25-year-old gas furnace at end of life; no central cooling
System After: Trane Resolute inverter heat pump (2–3 ton, model 4TXD2036A10NUA) + Coleman Z8ET080C16LMPS1 two-stage gas furnace (80,000 BTU) + Resolute Quest evaporator coil
Final Project Cost: $14,828.54
The Problem Wasn’t the Furnace. It Was Finding Anyone Who’d Come.
Bart did not ask for much. His 1976 home on Hartford-Getchell Road in Lake Stevens had a 25-year-old gas furnace that had finally reached the end of its life, and he wanted to replace it and add air conditioning while he was at it. That part was simple. What he could not find was a contractor willing to meet him on the only schedule a working father of four actually has, after the workday, at 5 in the afternoon.
He had been on Angi for weeks. Every estimate he tried to book required him to take time off work, and a family that depends on his income to stay afloat does not have spare hours to hand to a contractor’s convenience. His complaint, close to how he put it, was not about the equipment at all: he could not find anyone who would accommodate his schedule.
Robert showed up at 5 p.m.
That is the entire reason this job belongs to Product Air and not to someone else. Not a lower price, not a flashier pitch. A licensed HVAC technician with seven-plus years of experience who treated a 5 o’clock appointment as a normal thing to honor rather than a favor to grant.
A 25-Year-Old Furnace and a House That Had Never Been Cooled
The home is a 1976 two-story, 1,950 square feet, four bedrooms: a solid Lake Stevens family house of its era. The furnace was roughly 25 years old and struggling to heat the home reliably, which is exactly what you expect from a gas furnace at that age. Twenty-five years is past the end of the service window for residential furnaces; equipment that old has cycled through every winter the house has seen, and the heat exchanger, the blower, the burners, and the controls all carry the cumulative wear of a quarter-century of duty.
Robert’s read on it was not complicated, and he did not dress it up: the furnace was old, it was at the end of its life, and it was becoming unreliable. There was no manufactured drama here, no scare tactic about cracked heat exchangers Robert could not actually see. The customer already knew the unit was old. He was not looking to be talked into a crisis. He was looking for someone to replace a tired furnace and finally give the house air conditioning and to do it on a schedule that worked for a family with four kids.
There was no central cooling anywhere in the home. Whatever went in would be the first air conditioning the house had ever had.
What Robert Heard, and What He Built Around It
Robert’s job on the visit was to understand the brief before reaching for equipment, and the brief here was clear. Bart was planning to stay in the home for the next five to ten years. He wanted a system that would serve the family well and reliably, give them cooling for the first time, and not blow up the budget (a working family’s budget, with four kids in the house). This was not a customer who needed the top of the Mitsubishi range. It was a customer who needed the right tool, honestly priced, installed correctly the first time.
Here is what Robert said to him, “We heard you’re planning to be here for the next five to ten years, and you want a unit that will serve you well but not go crazy on the budget.”
That was exactly right. So Robert wrote it up that way: a Trane Resolute inverter-driven heat pump (model 4TXD2036A10NUA, 2-to-3-ton, quiet side-discharge, rated 15.2 SEER2) paired with a Coleman Z8ET080C16LMPS1 two-stage, multi-position gas furnace at 80,000 BTU and 80% efficiency, tied to a Resolute Quest evaporator coil. The heat pump handles heating through Lake Stevens’ milder months and delivers the air conditioning the house never had. The Coleman furnace provides dependable gas heat when the cold runs deep. It is a budget-conscious system that still does everything Bart asked of it, and it carries a 10-year manufacturer warranty behind the equipment.
When the Right Heat Pump Isn’t the Most Expensive One
Bart’s job answers a question a lot of Western Washington homeowners are quietly asking but rarely see addressed honestly: do you need the premium cold-climate system everyone talks about, or is a well-chosen entry-to-mid-tier heat pump the smarter buy for your situation? The honest answer is that it depends entirely on the home and the homeowner and for a working family planning a five-to-ten-year horizon on a real budget, the premium system is often the wrong recommendation.
An inverter-driven heat pump is the key piece, and it matters more than the SEER2 number on the label. A single-stage system, like the 25-year-old furnace coming out, runs in one mode: full output or off, cycling on and slamming off, swinging the temperature and the noise with it. An inverter-driven heat pump modulates. It ramps its output up and down to match the actual demand in the house, holding a consistent, even temperature instead of chasing it in bursts.
That is the difference Bart will feel every day. A house that stays at the temperature he set, quietly, rather than one that overshoots and undershoots around it. The Trane Resolute delivers that modulation at a price point built for exactly his kind of project.
Pairing that heat pump with a new two-stage Coleman gas furnace is a deliberate, budget-aware engineering choice. The heat pump does the efficient work through the mild two-thirds of the Lake Stevens heating season, when a heat pump moving existing heat into the house is dramatically cheaper to run than burning gas, and the furnace stands ready as dependable backup heat for the genuinely cold stretches. For a family replacing a furnace they no longer trusted, keeping a brand-new, reliable gas furnace in the system is not a compromise.
It is peace of mind, on top of the cooling and the lower bills the heat pump brings.
The efficiency math works in Bart’s favor on two fronts. The new system cools a house that could never be cooled before, which is value the old furnace could never deliver at any price.
And across the milder months, the inverter heat pump pulls the heating load at a fraction of what gas-only heat costs, the kind of change that shows up on the monthly utility bill rather than in a brochure. Homeowners across this region who move from an aging gas furnace to a heat pump consistently report meaningful drops in their monthly utilities. Bart did not buy the most expensive system on the market. He bought the one that fit his house, his family, and the years he plans to spend in it and that is the right answer, not the most expensive answer.
What We Installed
The Trane Resolute (model 4TXD2036A10NUA) is a 2-to-3-ton inverter-driven heat pump with a quiet side-discharge design that lets it sit cleanly against the side of the house. Inverter-driven and modulating, it holds an even temperature rather than cycling, and it provides the first central air conditioning the home has ever had. Our crew set it on a new concrete pad on the side yard, fed by an insulated copper line-set running to the indoor coil and a new electrical circuit out to the disconnect.
Inside, the Coleman Z8ET080C16LMPS1 replaced the 25-year-old furnace in the entry closet a 4-ton-capacity, 80,000 BTU, two-stage multi-position gas furnace at 80% efficiency, matched with a Resolute Quest evaporator coil so the heat pump and furnace operate as one integrated heating and cooling system. New flue venting and gas connections went in with it.
The electrical side was handled by our own licensed electricians as part of the same job: a new circuit breaker in the main panel and a new electrical run from the panel out to a new 60-amp outdoor disconnect for the heat pump. No subcontractor coordination, no second company to schedule around Bart’s already-tight calendar.
| Component | Detail |
| Heat Pump | Trane Resolute, inverter-driven, quiet side-discharge |
| Heat Pump Capacity / Rating | 2–3 Ton, 15.2 SEER2 |
| Heat Pump Model Number | 4TXD2036A10NUA |
| Gas Furnace | Coleman Z8ET080C16LMPS1, two-stage, multi-position |
| Furnace Capacity | 80,000 BTU, 80% efficiency |
| Evaporator Coil | Resolute Quest R-410, 3-ton |
| Electrical | New circuit + new 60-amp outdoor disconnect |
| Manufacturer Warranty | 10 years |
| Product Air Labor Warranty | 4 years |
One Day on Site, One Day to Sign-Off
This was a clean job with a clear scope, and Robert staffed it to finish fast and finish right. On installation day, February 19, two HVAC technicians and two electricians worked the home together. The HVAC crew pulled the 25-year-old furnace, set the new Coleman furnace and Resolute Quest coil in the closet with new venting and gas connections, placed the Trane Resolute outdoor unit on its new pad, ran the insulated copper line-set, pressure-tested and evacuated the system, and charged the refrigerant to spec. The two electricians ran the new circuit from the main panel to the new 60-amp disconnect. The full installation was completed in a single day.
Product Air handles all permitting as part of the job: the estimate’s Full System Permit line covers permit research, application, status monitoring, scheduling the inspections, and any corrections needed to meet code. Bart did not manage any of it. The inspector came out the following day, verified the work was done to code, and signed off the permits the morning after the install was complete.
For a customer whose entire problem was that no one would work around his schedule, the shape of this job is the point: one 5 p.m. estimate, one full installation day, one inspection sign-off the next morning. Robert did not ask a working family to rearrange their lives around the work.
What the Project Cost and Why There Were No Rebates
Base price: $14,828.54
Final cost: $14,828.54
No rebates applied to this installation, and Robert was straight with Bart about that from the start rather than dangling savings that were never coming.
Here is the honest reason. Lake Stevens sits in Snohomish County, where electric service is provided by Snohomish PUD, and the PUD’s heat pump rebates in 2026 are conversion programs. They pay $1,800 for a ducted conversion system and $2,500 for an inverter-driven ducted conversion, but both require converting the home’s heating over to a heat pump as the primary heat source. Bart’s system keeps a brand-new gas furnace as dependable backup heat, by his own choice and for his own budget reasons.
That is the right system for his family, but a gas-furnace-paired hybrid is not the heat-pump-primary conversion the PUD program is built to reward. Snohomish PUD does not offer the hybrid gas-and-heat-pump rebate that PSE offers in King County, so there was no program here to apply. We told Bart that plainly. We never show a rebate on a quote that the customer is not actually going to receive.
Bart financed the project at 0% APR for 12 months through GreenSky. No interest if paid within the term. For a working family managing a real budget, spreading a $14,828.54 system across a year at zero interest is its own kind of value, and it was built into the options Robert laid out.
What the Next Decade Looks Like
A professionally installed heat pump and furnace, maintained on a regular schedule, carries an expected service life of 15 to 20 years in this climate, comfortably past the five-to-ten-year window Bart told Robert he was planning for. The 10-year manufacturer warranty covers the equipment; Product Air’s 4-year labor warranty covers the installation itself. If something goes wrong with the work, we come back.
The day-to-day change for the family is real. The 25-year-old furnace that was struggling to heat the house is gone, replaced by a two-stage Coleman furnace and an inverter-driven heat pump that holds a steady, even temperature instead of cycling hard and swinging the house around a set point.
For the first time, the home has air conditioning, which for a four-bedroom house with kids through a Western Washington summer, is not a luxury so much as a change in how livable the upstairs bedrooms are in July and August. And across the milder months, the heat pump carries the heating load at a fraction of gas-only cost, the kind of reduction that shows up month after month on the utility bill.
Bart did not want the most expensive system in the catalog. He wanted a reliable one that fit his family and his budget, installed by someone who would respect his time. That is what he got.
Key Takeaways
- An inverter-driven heat pump modulates its output to hold a consistent, even temperature, where an old single-stage furnace runs full-blast or off the modulation, not the headline SEER2 number, is what a homeowner feels day to day.
- Pairing a budget-conscious heat pump with a new two-stage gas furnace gives a family efficient heat pump operation through the mild months plus dependable gas backup for deep cold and adds air conditioning a gas-only home never had.
- The most expensive system is not the right system for every home: for a working family planning a five-to-ten-year stay on a real budget, a well-installed entry-to-mid-tier heat pump and furnace is the honest recommendation.
- Snohomish PUD’s 2026 heat pump rebates ($1,800 ducted, $2,500 inverter-driven ducted) are conversion programs requiring a heat pump as the primary heat source; a gas-furnace-paired hybrid does not qualify, and Snohomish PUD does not offer the hybrid rebate PSE provides in King County, which is why no rebate applied here.
- A standard heat pump and furnace replacement with electrical work can be completed in a single day by a coordinated crew (two HVAC technicians and two electricians) with the permit inspection signed off the following morning.
- Product Air’s electricians handle the panel and disconnect work in-house as part of the HVAC job, so the homeowner is not coordinating a separate electrical contractor around an already-tight schedule.
What We Are Building Here
Product Air Heating, Cooling and Electric serves Western Washington from Marysville and Lake Stevens through Snohomish County, Seattle, and the Eastside. We are a licensed HVAC and electrical contractor, and the crews working Lake Stevens, Marysville, and the communities around them are local people who treat a homeowner’s time as something that matters.
Bart spent weeks on Angi trying to find someone who would simply show up after he got off work. Robert did: at 5 p.m., with a written, fixed-cost estimate and a system built around what Bart actually needed rather than what would have run up the invoice.
That is the whole job, really. Show up when you say you will, tell the truth about what the home needs and what it doesn’t, lay out the options at a price that holds, and leave the choice in the homeowner’s hands. A working family with four kids should not have to take a day off to get a furnace replaced. They shouldn’t have to chase a rebate that was never real, either. We told Bart what was true on both counts, did the work in a day, and stayed through the inspector’s sign-off.
— Serge Nikolin, Co-Founder, Product Air Heating, Cooling and Electric
Marysville · Issaquah · Seattle · Western Washington