Replacing furnace - thoughts from geniuses here?

[NCHawk5]

@billanole did you sober up or double down this morning?

 

[billanole]

@billanole did you sober up or double down this morning?

You know not of what you post. Go back to your other handle, cause this one is not funny or interesting. You are trying to hard.
What is your average power bill in Wilmington?

 

[NCHawk5]

You know not of what you post. Go back to your other handle, cause this one is not funny or interesting. You are trying to hard.
What is your average power bill in Wilmington?

Doubled down. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[billanole]

Doubled down. Nothing wrong with that.

Cuck.

 

[NCHawk5]

Cuck.

Lol good one. I’m trying “to” hard? Christ you’re an idiot. Go on another rant about your reps stealing your voice from you.

 

[SWIowahawks]

Definitely replace. They aren’t feeding you a line of bullshit…it will be much more cost effective to replace it now while the ductwork is out. If you build the new ductwork to your current furnace, more than likely they will have to rebuild the plenum to fit the new furnace.

You’ll save a ton on efficiency in the meantime too. If you decide to keep the new one, you’ll also feel the need to just replace the part when it does act up. Then you’re out another couple hundred bucks for no reason.

Load limit was brought up earlier and a concern for sure.

 

[Tenacious E]

Putting an addition on our house (not bragging). Obviously have a lot of hvac work and I was talking with the hvac guys this AM. We had to pay people to put new Freon in our AC last summer and it was old AF, so we’re replacing it. I’m happy about that decision. Our furnace is 25 years old. We knew it was old and would need replacing when we moved in 4 years ago. There’s been nothing wrong with it, though. Haven’t had any issues whatsoever. So my thoughts on it have been, don’t make any movements until it dies. Ride it til the wheels fall off. The hvac guys are saying, “oh no, it needs to go now while we’re reworking all the ductwork. It’ll be more expensive to put a new one in down the road since we won’t actively be working on the hvac.”

This kind of makes sense - they’re already here doing the work. But it also kind of sounds like a load of horseshit. If I get another year (or another 5 - like I said, haven’t had any issues with the existing furnace) out of the one we’ve got, doesn’t that negate those extra costs?

Im out of my element with HVAC. What say you all?

Monitoring this thread for a friend.

 

[artradley]

Your current unit is rated on your current square footage more than likely. Adding more space will put more strain on the unit. Being 25 years old your current unit's efficiency is probably horrible. I'm guessing for every dollar you spend on running it $.40 is wasted. It will get worse when you add-on. Last year I spent $20+k on a new high efficiency furnace a/c unit. It's 99% efficient and loses about 0.5% efficiency a year. IMO bite the bullet and get a new unit.

This. You’re going to spend the money within the next five years anyway. Spend it now and start saving on your energy bill now.

 

[golfinghawkeye]

Yeah I know but I needed to make a decision. My swamp cooler just took a dump and my furnace was 20+ years old. So I took some equity out of my home and decided to go big. Spending more at the point of purchase for a high efficiency unit is a cost game that eventually over the course of 7-8 years pays for itself. I had solar installed at the same time which is also pays for itself after about 12 years. I also had a air purifier installed which was another $1200 because my wife's and son's allergies are horrible during the spring. But a low end unit with 80% efficiency and a low seer condenser will probably run you $10k or so. There are other units out there for $6-8k. But the old adage is true. You really do get what you pay for.

Did you get the new system recently? One condition for a house when we bought a few years ago was refrigerated air. I didn’t want to deal with swamp coolers in really hot temperatures or during monsoon season.

 

[Gimmered]

Yeah F that noise. I guess if you want $500/month electricity

I know someone in Iowa who pays an arm and a leg for electricity because of an electric water heater/heat. Maybe they have an old/inefficient system, and I don’t believe it’s mid American

There's no such thing as an inefficient electric unit. They are all 100% efficient, and you're right, natural gas is a lot cheaper than electric, unless you get into heat pumps, then they efficiency clime to 400%. Some can handle the subzero temps of the Midwest, but it requires a cold start kit at the least or you'll kill the compressor. A dual fuel system of heat pump, and natural gas is the best bet, I'd like to add electric coils to mine for defrost instead of waiting for the natural gas furnace to offset the defrost mode.
I'm locked into a 2 year rate for my natural gas now though, so I don't run my heat pump at all.

 

[Mayland]

What are you talking about? MidAmerica, Iowa's largest energy provider, already sources most of its energy from wind and solar, at like 13 cents per kwh. Super cheap.

In 2020, we delivered 83.6% of our Iowa customers’ annual energy needs with renewable sources, mostly wind. This is a significant step toward achieving our 100% renewable energy vision and supports our goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.

Gas price is volatile, and dependent on world demand. Price an electric furnace. They cost about a third of tge price of a gas furnace. Twenty years from now gas will only get more expensive, while wind & solar electric costs will only go down.

Electric was about twice as expensive as gas for me this past winter.

 

[red/green hawk]

Did you get the new system recently? One condition for a house when we bought a few years ago was refrigerated air. I didn’t want to deal with swamp coolers in really hot temperatures or during monsoon season.

Year and a half ago. Swamp coolers have some pros and cons. As long as you get one that is rated for an area larger than your home they do well for the most part...well until July/August and the monsoons like you mentioned. They are A LOT cheaper to operate though. I was thinking about getting another but my furnace was so old it was gonna have to get replaced soon so I pulled the trigger. Putting in a/c was the best decision I've made in a loooooong time.

 

[golfinghawkeye]

Year and a half ago. Swamp coolers have some pros and cons. As long as you get one that is rated for an area larger than your home they do well for the most part...well until July/August and the monsoons like you mentioned. They are A LOT cheaper to operate though. I was thinking about getting another but my furnace was so old it was gonna have to get replaced soon so I pulled the trigger. Putting in a/c was the best decision I've made in a loooooong time.

When we lived in Alamogordo a decade plus ago the building I worked in at Holloman AFB had a swamp cooler. It was fine in April and most of May. Once the triple digits hit along with the monsoons it sucked. Those 2+ years made my decision for me when we moved to Albuquerque.

 

[Hawkman98]

I just put did my furnace and air at one time too. Make sure you negotiate. Couple things I added is an hvac ionizer with UV bulbs. Kills bacteria and germs as constant air flow moves through the duct work. I also got them to clean all of my duct work for free. Might be something to try to get thrown in if you haven't had that done in the last 10 years. I debated having them add a whole home humidifier, but I passed on that. This last winter I kind of wish I had it.

 

[soybean]

Every H/C guy I know will admit that a furnance put in 25 years ago likely has 10 more years to go.

 

[SF HAWKEYE]

We replaced both 6 years ago. I would recommend getting multiple bids on it. The place we went with sold us their own branded furnace. The 10 year warranty on furnace and AC is only good if you pay for their maintenance program. We’re silver members and it’s $20 a month. Which sucks. They just came out last week to do our furnace maintenance after winter. They do our AC in Sept.
Our 2nd year maintenance on our furnace they did $250 in repairs (Not covered under warranty). The guy fixing it said the furnace was a POS. Apparently their own branded ones weren’t panning out. I was super pissed but they have me over the barrel and they know it.
They also said the AC they sold us would easily cool our whole house. Well it didn’t. Our upstairs is 10 degrees warmer. They said we needed a unit upstairs as well that would be $3,600. So we just threw a $79 window unit in instead.
TLDR HVAC is a racket. Can’t trust them.

 

[hawkeyez]

Every H/C guy I know will admit that a furnance put in 25 years ago likely has 10 more years to go.

Mine crapped out right at 23 years. They put a band aide on it twice, but it was done for. It had a good run!

 

[Gimmered]

We replaced both 6 years ago. I would recommend getting multiple bids on it. The place we went with sold us their own branded furnace. The 10 year warranty on furnace and AC is only good if you pay for their maintenance program. We’re silver members and it’s $20 a month. Which sucks. They just came out last week to do our furnace maintenance after winter. They do our AC in Sept.
Our 2nd year maintenance on our furnace they did $250 in repairs (Not covered under warranty). The guy fixing it said the furnace was a POS. Apparently their own branded ones weren’t panning out. I was super pissed but they have me over the barrel and they know it.
They also said the AC they sold us would easily cool our whole house. Well it didn’t. Our upstairs is 10 degrees warmer. They said we needed a unit upstairs as well that would be $3,600. So we just threw a $79 window unit in instead.
TLDR HVAC is a racket. Can’t trust them.

Oh my, not only are they butt raping you, you're paying them to do it.

 

[soybean]

Mine crapped out right at 23 years. They put a band aide on it twice, but it was done for. It had a good run!

Buy a real one from the git-go instead of some no-name brand that is really just a kit job.