My furnace in my personal home is dead. It’s ancient and needs to be replaced soon cause it’s cold!
Anyhow, I’m not familiar with these things at all. I’m getting SO many different views from different contractors that I don’t know what to decide upon.
The current ancient furnace intakes 85,000 BTU and puts out 105,000 BTUs.
Should I get 80%, 92%, 96% efficiency on the next furnace? Should I get the chimney lined?
What brand: Amana, Rheem, Goodman?
The Amana 92% efficiency is $6k with the chimney liner.
The Goodman 92% is $3.5k, no liner.
The 80% is $2,200… no chimney liner.
Anyone have any input with this? I’m LOSTTTTT and need have a snow storm headed my way this weekend. :help
I just had a Lennox air exchanger installed in my home today. The owner of the company was all about Lennox as a brand, Rheem was the middle of the pack (Though my Rheem builders model is 10 years old and running strong.) I think he ripped Goodman but I can’t exactly remember as it isn’t a name I recognized. I did ask him about the cost of replacing my furnace and it would be $3k or $4k depending on which model Lennox I chose. That’s just the unit installed i’m not sure about the Chimney thing you mention. My home is a 1999 and I don’t need a furnace but was just shting the shit with the contractor.
I installed a new heater and AC in my primary residence this fall. I had estimates from $9500 to $12000. Did it myself for $4500. Installing just a heater should be much, much cheaper, especially if you are simply swapping out the same basic style and fuel. (my cost included a bunch of other misc items such as adding insulation and removing an oil tank, running a heavier 220V circuit for AC, installing a gas line to the heater, etc, etc, etc). IIRC the difference between the 80% and 95% heaters was about $250. With the high efficiency heaters, they vent and exhaust via PVC pipe and there should be no need to line the chimney (depending on other appliances venting through the chimney). I’d simply size the new heater to match your current system or ask the vendor to do a sizing calculation (Manual J calculation) for you (you will need detailed measurements of rooms, windows, and doors as well as other basic construction info regarding your home)
Check out ebay for heaters. A 92K BTU 95% efficiency 2 stage Goodman can be had for as low as $850. I installed a Goodman heater and AC. It has the reputation of the “builder’s quality” but you’ll find out that the individual components are basically the same as the premium brands and it has the best standard warranty of any system you can buy. The Amana is actually just a rebranded Goodman that MAY have an upgraded heat exchanger (You’ll pay extra for it) . The ebay vendor did a sizing calculation for me and I wound up getting a smaller and cheaper heater than I anticipated. Even if you don’t buy off ebay, at least you’ll know prices and how much you are getting ripped off.
After buying the system off ebay, I used craigslist and found a local HVAC guy to help me out with the installation. 2 full days of his work cost me $500 (included in the $4.5K total).
It really wasn’t that hard.
jmd_forest