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Replacing a furnaceAlong with roof replacement and paint jobs, one of the last things a homeowner wants to hear is that they need a new furnace. Even though it doesn't look like much in your garage or basement, replacing a furnace means getting ready to spend from $3-$5 thousand dollars. How long do furnaces last? The average furnace probably works for about 14-20 years, assuming it is properly maintained. So by the time your furnace dies and you need to buy a new one, you are looking at replacing a mechanical and electronic appliance that is almost 2 decades old, which is an eternity in these modern times. So let's say it is 2007, and your furnace is dead. Chance are, it was designed and installed back in the early 90s or late 80s. In those ancient times, a good furnace had an efficiency rating of about 60-80%, meaning that 80% of the gas or oil burned went to heat your house, and the rest was lost as waste heat up your chimney or vent. So you go shopping for a new furnace today, and you see 90, 92, 94, even 95% effiency measurements on these new furnaces. What does this mean? What should you research and buy? In this guide we will take a look at the best selling furnaces, both brands and features, and consider some current price estimates to give you a starting point as you plan your furnace replacement project.
How Furnace Work - what to look forBefore we get too far, let's talk about basic furnace design and functions you will be choosing from. For a gas furnace, which most of the US uses, your first choice will be the heat output of the furnace, measure in British Thermal Units, or BTUs. For example, furnaces might range from 40,000 BTUS to 100,000 BTUs. For a 1500sf home, a 60,000 BTU furnace is probably adequate. Large homes often have multiple "zones" and multiple furnaces to heat them. Your furnace installer will measure your home and calculate the required size of furnace, or may simply replace the existing unit with one of the same size. the efficiency rating of the unit. If your furnace is too big for your house, it will run at full power and turn off long before it gets to an efficient heat and level, and you will be wasting money -- so big is not always better. The next choice will be in efficiency ratings. As we said, most older furnaces were only 80% or less efficient. Almost all modern furnaces are a minimum of 90% on the efficiency scale, and you will see them rated all the way up to 95%. When it comes to cost, you will find about a 10% differential between a 90% furnace and a 94-95% furnace. Over the years, this additional efficiency might pay for itself - consider buying what you can afford. If the extra couple hundred bucks is a stretch, stick with the 90%; if you can afford the 94%, go for it and enjoy the marginal savings over the years. So the efficiency rating tells you how well the furnace turns the fuel into heat for your home -- how it does that is via its burner and heat exchanger, and its blower which sends the warm air through the ductwork into your house.Old furnaces are known as single-stage furnaces. Basically, your furnace runs and burns at almost full power, all the time it is on. This is an inefficient method, since you would save fuel by starting to burn slowly, then as the unit warmed up, burning more, etc. and doing the opposite at the end of the cycle. The same is true regarding the ambient temperature outside. If it is not too cold, you can heat your house with less power by burning less fuel, instead of burning at full power. This issue was addressed with the advent of two-stage furnaces, which can run at about 65% of capacity or 95%, depending on the circumstances. Some companies even offer a three-stage burner and even a modulating burner (Coleman Echelon V -- the 8V units are 80% efficiency and the 9V units are all 90%+), which can run at 33%-90%, in 1% modulating increments as needed. This is as good as it gets, with a smart furnace that knows how hard and long it needs to run to get to the desired temperature. They still make single stage furnaces, but when it comes time to choose, you should opt for the two-stage or better. The final option is the blower, which is basically a fan that pushes all the hot air from the air handler, through the ductwork, and out through the vents in your house. Old blowers ran at a single speed. The newest blowers are variable speed, meaning they can run low, high, or anywhere in between, depending on what stage the furnace is in and how heat can most efficiently be sent into the home. These motors are very efficient and use less energy in most cases than a 100W light bulb, meaning you save money in gas and in electricity costs. The variable speed blowers run more often, and at lower speeds, than old-fashion blower, which keeps the warm air circulating better in your home instead of piling up at your ceiling, away from where you are sitting. It also means your air moves through your filter more often, resulting in cleaner air. Choosing the Best FurnaceWhen it comes to picking the best furnace, there is no easy answer here. If you tear apart the inside of any furnace, you will find that most of them use the same suppliers for major parts like heat exchangers, blower moters, electrical circuit boards, etc. Much like buying a computer, companies combine all these components and put their name on them, but they are 90% the same inside and out. The biggest names in the furnace business are Trane, Rheem/Ruud, Carrier/Bryant, Lennox, Tempstar, and Coleman. Trane makes the well-known XV90, that provide 90-94% efficiency. They are 2 stage furnaces with variable speed blowers. Most 2-stage furnaces run at the lower speed (65%) about 80% of the time, saving you a lot of money on gas. For Trane, their models are as follows: Trane XV90 is top of the line, with variable speed blower and 2 stage burner; the XL90 has a 4 speed blower and 2 stage burner; the XT90 has a high efficiency blower and single stage burner; and the XR90 has a 4 speed blower and single stage burner. Trane, which is part of American Standard, has been making furnaces for more than 80 years. Carrier makes the Infinity series of furnaces, including the Infinity 96 gas furnace, Performance 93, Infinity 80, Comfort 92, and comfort 90. As you can guess, the number refers to the AFUE efficiency rating of the furnace. Rheem makes the Prestige RGGD series, RGPR, RGLR, 90TJ, RGPQ, RGLQ, RGTK, 90RJ, and 80PJ furnaces. Some of the Rheem furnaces are 3-stage burners.How much does a new furnace cost?A new furnace is not cheap. And if you live in a large home with 2 or more zones and furnaces, the hit is even worse if you have to replace 2 furnaces! We went through this process in the winter of 2006. The first step is to get price quotes from several HVAC contractors -- look in your phone book under Heating or Furnaces, or better yet, get some references from your neighbors, friends, and family of who they used for a new furnace. One problem associated with newer high-efficiency furnaces is ventilation. Old furnaces sent a lot of hot air up the sheet-metal, ductwork flue. New furnaces recycle much of the hot air, meaning that the eventual exhaust is much cooler, which makes it more prone to condense and drip back down the pipes in the form of water. To get around this, high-efficiency furnaces require special plastic PVC ductwork venting, either following the paths of the old metal ductwork if there is room, or carving out new space in the ceiling and walls around your furnace to handle this requirement. There will also be a need for a drainage or pump system to move the condensate fluids outside and away from your furnace. So your cost will not only reflect the actual cost of your furnace, but also the man hours on installation time and the removal of your old system. All this means you will be presented with one number, with everything else buried inside of it, making it tough to compare estimates. Most of the estimates we received were with 10-15% of each other for comparable systems. Most installers quoted both 90% base level systems and 94% or 95% top-of-the-line furnaces. Our estimates on a 80,000 BTU furnace, 2 stage or better, 90% or better efficiency, variable speed blower, ranged from $4000 to $5200. With some negotiations, we were able to get our contractors to drop about 10% off their quoted prices. Don't be ashamed to haggle -- these guys want your business, to move their inventory, to keep their installers busy, and to build up future maintenance business -- push them on price.Keep in mind that you will probably also qualify for some tax and energy credits for replacing an old appliance with a new high efficiency unit. In our case, that amounted to about a 15% rebate from the total cost outlay. Be sure you file all the paperwork required in your state and at the federal level to get the tax credits and energy rebates you are entitled to. New Furnace InstallationInstalling a new furnace is not as simple as it appears. You'd think it could be done in an hour or two, but it can easily take 2 men a full 8 hour day to remove an old furnace and put in a new one, complete with venting, drainage, electrical hook up, gas hookup, etc. When it comes to installation, you want to make sure you have a solid, experienced, reliable installer. A poor installation of a great furnace will give you 20 years of bad performance. Our installer actually provided a 2 year warranty on their work - they would come and remove the furnace at any time over the next 24 months and give us all our money back if we weren't happy with it, letting us select another installer to redo their work if needed. That is a real guarantee. When it comes to guarantees, most furnaces are guaranteed for 5 years for all parts, with a lifetime warranty on the heat exchanger.
Furnace Repair Costs
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