Hello all -
I've replaced a few things on our furnace in recent years and kept it limping along, but the time has come.
It's a 30ish-year-old Carrier, natural gas, mid-efficiency, and it packed it in yesterday morning. In the past five years I've replaced the blower motor, the fan control board, and the heat-limit switch. I called a local indy company with good online reviews, and the tech was really good. He diagnosed a bad induction-motor assembly, which is pricey enough, but then also found the bulkhead to which the assembly mounts is very rusty. The heat-exchanger is not far behind.
Plus, the federal government is going to ramp up the carbon tax on all fossil fuels, including natural gas, so a more-efficient furnace is not a bad idea anyway. I doubt the old one is hitting its nominal 80% efficiency anymore.
OK, so I've accepted that it's time.
By law, all new furnaces here have to meet high-efficiency standards - I think 90% efficiency. The ones I'm looking at are nominally 96%.
Because of the high efficiency, the furnace vents out through a wall, rather than up through a chimney. The downside of this is that the water heater (also natural-gas-fired) is not allowed to use the existing chimney as-is - the chimney pipe diameter is too large for the reduced amount of exhaust that would be generated by the water heater alone. And therefore a chimney liner is required, which adds about $1200 plus tax to the total. (An alternative is to replace the gas-fired water heater with an electric one, but it's much more expensive to heat with electricity. The savings created by the more-efficient furnace using less gas would be offset by the extra cost of heating water.)
There's a tech from a competing company (another indy with a good reputation) coming to estimate the job tomorrow.
I think it will come down to the brand, unless there's a really significant price difference.
Company A is offering Daikan units.
Company B offers a rebranded Lennox line. Air Serve? Something like that.
My questions:
1. What are BITOGers' opinions of these two brands?
2. Company A has quoted two different levels of Daikin furnace - a mid-level model, and a higher-end one.
Besides a longer warranty on the higher-end one, the main difference seems to be a "variable-speed ECM" vs. a "multi-speed motor". Is this DC vs AC? Would the variable-speed ECM use significantly less electricity than the conventional motor? We run the furnace fan year round for the HRV, which uses the HVAC ductwork. The conventional AC motor does run up the electric bill, running 24/7.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
I've replaced a few things on our furnace in recent years and kept it limping along, but the time has come.
It's a 30ish-year-old Carrier, natural gas, mid-efficiency, and it packed it in yesterday morning. In the past five years I've replaced the blower motor, the fan control board, and the heat-limit switch. I called a local indy company with good online reviews, and the tech was really good. He diagnosed a bad induction-motor assembly, which is pricey enough, but then also found the bulkhead to which the assembly mounts is very rusty. The heat-exchanger is not far behind.
Plus, the federal government is going to ramp up the carbon tax on all fossil fuels, including natural gas, so a more-efficient furnace is not a bad idea anyway. I doubt the old one is hitting its nominal 80% efficiency anymore.
OK, so I've accepted that it's time.
By law, all new furnaces here have to meet high-efficiency standards - I think 90% efficiency. The ones I'm looking at are nominally 96%.
Because of the high efficiency, the furnace vents out through a wall, rather than up through a chimney. The downside of this is that the water heater (also natural-gas-fired) is not allowed to use the existing chimney as-is - the chimney pipe diameter is too large for the reduced amount of exhaust that would be generated by the water heater alone. And therefore a chimney liner is required, which adds about $1200 plus tax to the total. (An alternative is to replace the gas-fired water heater with an electric one, but it's much more expensive to heat with electricity. The savings created by the more-efficient furnace using less gas would be offset by the extra cost of heating water.)
There's a tech from a competing company (another indy with a good reputation) coming to estimate the job tomorrow.
I think it will come down to the brand, unless there's a really significant price difference.
Company A is offering Daikan units.
Company B offers a rebranded Lennox line. Air Serve? Something like that.
My questions:
1. What are BITOGers' opinions of these two brands?
2. Company A has quoted two different levels of Daikin furnace - a mid-level model, and a higher-end one.
Besides a longer warranty on the higher-end one, the main difference seems to be a "variable-speed ECM" vs. a "multi-speed motor". Is this DC vs AC? Would the variable-speed ECM use significantly less electricity than the conventional motor? We run the furnace fan year round for the HRV, which uses the HVAC ductwork. The conventional AC motor does run up the electric bill, running 24/7.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
