best high efficiency natural gas furnace ?

me | 2-28-14 | TZ

[TurboZamboni]

I've never seen brands rated in Consumer Reports.

Time for a new one and this winter only made it more apparent.

[Sawdring]

Usually you don’t need an annual service agreement, unless the company that sold it to you put that in their agreement. Goodman’s 10 year doesn’t include that.

[Rodamala]

I lived in a old stone farmhouse that had an oil fired Burnham cast iron boiler for hydronic baseboard heat. My friend's great aunt had it installed I. 1985... and other than not being serviced (other than emergency servicing) it had not been properly cleaned in 7 years... I tore it down and brushed all the heat exchange surfaces... The clean out plates went taken off were completely plugged with soot. After the major clean out and a new nozzle... I was able to adjust the stack temp and CO₂ and get the efficency to about 86.5%... unheard of for a 25 year old oil burner. I was impressed with the 1985 model Burnham. Well built unit.

[catnipman]

The thing to watch out for is that every brand has essentially three lines of furnaces: premium, budget, and contractor grade. Avoid all furnaces, regardless of brand, except the premium. You’ll pay more, but it’s not gonna need fixing every 3-4 years.

BTW, here’s the best set of reviews on the Internet:

http://www.hvac-for-beginners.com/furnace-ratings.html

[Tijeras_Slim]

Thanks, that’s very cool.

[SgtHooper]

My recommendation as well, and you may still get some tax benefit based on the efficiency rating. We replaced our older Lennox about 5 years ago, for a new unit by Lennox.

[SgtHooper]

Now I remember, we bought the house from the original owner at 15 years old. Add another 10 years and the heat exchanger of the Lennox unit failed two months just inside the warranty period!! Covered! We got $1,000 off the replacement unit. :-) How’s that for timing!

[Eva]

The temperature is 34 degrees and we still have about 6 inches of snow on the ground and our heat pump was working this morning!

[Abathar]

I live in Indiana, my water pump unit cost me $14k to install. Sounds high, but we figured I will save over $1800 or more just this winter alone from my neighbor who heats with gas and also has an electric bill on top of it.

Running a ground loop doesn’t mean just wells, it means trenching around the yard placing the runs horizontal also. I’m lucky that I have both ground and lake loop so my efficiency is a little higher. With a family of 5 the very highest electric bill I have, which is the entire house, heat, hot water, etc. was $297 last month, and that was the highest I’ve ever had a monthly bill come in at. (last month sucked as you well know also) I also keep my house at 71 degrees constant all winter. Duke Energy keeps my rate a little lower because I went all electric but they just increased me to $08.8 a Kw unit last month, not happy about that either.

Costs more in the initial outlay, but if you have enough yard to put the loops in (like a deep sprinkler system, well under the frost line) you can save a ton of money in the long run. Hooked to a generator like I am (25Kv tractor PTO driven one) and I can run my house off my tractor for as long as I have to as well, that has come in handy.

[Abathar]

Typo, $397 last month.