Seeking advice regarding furnace replacement.

[Legless_Marine2]

We've been waffling on replacing my furnace for a while, and have gotten no closer to a decision. I'm hoping someone here can offer some insight that will tilt the balance one way or other.

Considerations:

-Furnace is 50 years old, but still running well. I've been told that given it's age, sudden, irreparable failure is increasingly possible. This is most likely during winter, which would leave us little room to make ideal replacement choices.

-Current Gas bill is ~2000 a year. (~60 in summer, ~250 in winter).

-Based on conversations with furnace techs/gasfitters, I can expect to save 30% in my heating with a new furnace, which I expect would cost me $6000 installed. ROI=~10 years.

-I expect to live in this place for roughly 10 more years - 5 min, 15 max. I don't expect a furnace would contribute much to resale value, as house is a likely pulldown candidate and purchaser would be paying for land/location.

-I'm still toying with the idea of installing a wood fireplace, which I expect to cost ~3500, and give us a fallback in case of furnace failure. Additionally, it would potentially offset heating costs in winter. On the downside, it would slightly increase my house insurance.

I'm leaning towards replacing, but now is not a good time to part with ~$6000. OTOH, whatever I do, it's better done sooner than later.

Having trouble making a decision here. Can anyone offer insight to tilt things one way or the other?

Best regards,
LM.

[Masked Bandit]

50 year old furnace? Wow, dump that thing now! Keep in mind that your calculation for your ROI assuming that the price of natural gas stays constant. Do you really think that is probable? I sure don't.

In addition to that, if it would cost you $6000 to replace the furnace now, what do you think it's going to cost you on a Sunday morning in January when it's -30 outside?

Oh ya, call your insurance broker and ask them what they think of you putting in a wood burning device of any kind in your home.

[ercchry]

how big is your house? i use to work for a plumbing/heating company and our quotes for furnaces was under $5g for the homes i was helping with (under 1800sqft)

[Legless_Marine2]

Originally posted by ercchry
how big is your house? i use to work for a plumbing/heating company and our quotes for furnaces was under $5g for the homes i was helping with (under 1800sqft)

1000 sqft, two levels.

[ercchry]

damn $6g seem steep, is it a confided space or something? i would shop around a bit more. a furnace for a space like that would be really small too

[Legless_Marine2]

Originally posted by Masked Bandit
50 year old furnace? Wow, dump that thing now! Keep in mind that your calculation for your ROI assuming that the price of natural gas stays constant. Do you really think that is probable? I sure don't.

In addition to that, if it would cost you $6000 to replace the furnace now, what do you think it's going to cost you on a Sunday morning in January when it's -30 outside?

Oh ya, call your insurance broker and ask them what they think of you putting in a wood burning device of any kind in your home.

Good call on rising gas... I agree with your assessment.

Just followed your advice and called broker. Looks like a $8 increase/yr. I expressed surprise. They are going to confirm and call me back.

EDIT: Insurance called me back and confirmed their error: Wood stove will actually increase my house insurance from 666->800. 666? This can't be good.

[Legless_Marine2]

An additional thought:

I'm really resisting the idea of forking out $5000 for our furnace, and am racking my brain for alternatives. Here's another one that's come to mind:

- Replace our old-skool gas fireplace in the basement with something high efficiency. I think this could be done for a grand, and it should be able to partially heat our 1000 sqft house in case of an emergency. This would give us time to get a wood stove installed up stairs (~3000) to augment our heat. - Note, it is not for sure we'd have to fork out the $3000 for wood stove - This would only be in case the old furnace finall crapped out.

The benefits of this are that a woodstove costs less, and we can take it with us when we eventually move out.

Ideally, we'd never have to take this route, but it provides dual-fallback and saves us from forking out for a full furnace replacement.

[blitz]

I bought my furnace at Costco in the spring and paid $3500 installed for the premium (non HE) furnace for a 1500 sq ft house + basement. The cheapest option they had was $2600 Installed. Arpies did the install and I was please with them.

You'll have to do it sooner or later, and spending $3k on a fireplace as a stop-gap measure seems a little wastefull.

If you're going to be there for 10 years, do you really expect the furnace to last that long? Chances are you'll have to do it, and it'll be a lot cheaper to do it before a failure when you have the time to shop around and get the best deal.

[Masked Bandit]

I don't know about a HE fireplace. As a back up, sure but I still think going with a new HE furnace is the best overall solution.

[Legless_Marine2]

Originally posted by blitz
I bought my furnace at Costco in the spring and paid $3500 installed for the premium (non HE) furnace for a 1500 sq ft house + basement. The cheapest option they had was $2600 Installed. Arpies did the install and I was please with them.


That's incredible! I'll be giving them a call...


Thanks,
LM2.

[A790]

Originally posted by Legless_Marine2
An additional thought:

I'm really resisting the idea of forking out $5000 for our furnace, and am racking my brain for alternatives. Here's another one that's come to mind:

- Replace our old-skool gas fireplace in the basement with something high efficiency. I think this could be done for a grand, and it should be able to partially heat our 1000 sqft house in case of an emergency. This would give us time to get a wood stove installed up stairs (~3000) to augment our heat. - Note, it is not for sure we'd have to fork out the $3000 for wood stove - This would only be in case the old furnace finall crapped out.

The benefits of this are that a woodstove costs less, and we can take it with us when we eventually move out.

Ideally, we'd never have to take this route, but it provides dual-fallback and saves us from forking out for a full furnace replacement.
These are all band-aid solutions. At some point and you know this, that furnace will fail and will require replacement... regardless of whether or not you installed fireplaces etc.

Replace the furnace and swallow the bill now. When it's -30 outside and you're warm and toasty inside you'll be happy :)

[djayz]

I'm going through the same thing at my household. Furnace is 18 years old but works fine but my hot water tank is on its way out, can barely get one hot 20 minute shower out of it so both are being replaced.

I got a quote from Action Furnace, the guy came and spent about an hour and a half going over everything. Waste of time because he couldve just gone over what we needed to know in 30 minutes and been out the door. Anyways guy was nice and explained it all in detail showed up some quotes from other companies etc.

Now after doing some research on Amana we found out that they are owned by Goodman which the guy said isn't a good furnace maker. If I had known at the time I would've told the guy that Amana is made by Goodman. So anyways he gave us a quote of $4700 for the top model HE furnace made by Amana, this price includes install and can be done within a weeks notice and it takes a full day to install. Water tank is $800 extra which includes install.

All in all the deal seems decent, obviously when you look around for prices on the internet you always find these wholesale places that sell things ultra cheap. These guys aside from their price offer some good garauntees and according to him are the only company that can get a $700 rebate from the government for putting in a HE furnace.

So what I want to know is what other companies are out there and has anyone had experience with Action Furnace and/or Amana furnaces?

Looking to replace sometime this month, sooner the better as I don't want to be without heat when it's -30 and snowing on halloween hah.

Edit: and to the OP replace the furnace and forget about all that other stuff you're planning on doing. A 50 year old furnace is great but consider yourself lucky. Also if you can't justify spending $5000 on a furnance why not just get a 80% for $2500 or so and call it a day, atleast you won't have to worry about losing heat all of a sudden and since you plan to move down the line this will be more than enough to get you through to that time. 12% of efficiency is something but your house is 2/3 the size of mine and my bills are less than yours so that tells you something comparing a 50 year old furnace and an 18 year old furnace.

[Bladeh]

As anyone recently got a furnace replaced? I was over at the in laws today doing some chores for them and I know they have been having issues with the humidifier for a while now so I took a look, looks like the humidifier is from the stone age and the furnace looks like 35 years old and don't think they have had any kind of service since they moved in 10 years ago.

What’s the price for a furnace replacement these days? If about 5g then I'd buy it for them out of my pocket because has you know the older they get, the tighter they become hehe!

[78si]

We went with action furnace, after getting many quotes. $4600 installed for a goodman 70 000btu HE.