I love the folk that get rid of a perfectly good car or truck and take on a $4-600/month payment in order to save 10mpg. Yet, they only drive 8-10k miles a year. Even with $4/gallon gas, the payback would be 25 years!
Posted on 11/26/2012 3:13:25 PM PST by Timber Rattler
Replacing an aging furnace could cost homeowners thousands of dollars more after May 1, when new federal energy efficiency standards take effect for northern states, including New Jersey.
The new energy-efficient natural gas furnaces aren’t that much more expensive themselves, but they must be vented directly to an outside wall rather than through the chimney, which can increase installation costs dramatically, home heating contractors say.
(snip)
Under the Department of Energy rules, gas furnaces installed after May 1 must be at least 90 percent efficient, compared with the current 78 percent efficient criterion.
Similar improvements in energy efficiency are set to go into effect for heat pumps and air conditioning systems in Southern states.
(snip)
The rules were produced after Congress passed a law in 2007 allowing the Department of Energy to develop regional standards for central heating and cooling equipment.
Analysis by the U.S. Department of Energy concluded that between 2013 and 2045, the higher-efficiency furnaces, air conditioning systems and heat pumps would save about one-fifth of the amount of total energy used annually by the U.S. residential sector.
In addition, the drop in energy use would result in greenhouse gas reductions of up to 143 million metric tons of carbon dioxide over those three decades. That’s equivalent to the amount of carbon emitted each year to produce the electricity used by 1.8 million homes, or the carbon emissions produced from burning nearly 77,900 railcars worth of coal, according to an Environmental Protection Agency greenhouse gas calculator.
(Excerpt) Read more at northjersey.com ...
Elections have consequences
I love the folk that get rid of a perfectly good car or truck and take on a $4-600/month payment in order to save 10mpg. Yet, they only drive 8-10k miles a year. Even with $4/gallon gas, the payback would be 25 years!
Invest in casket makers.
My gas water heater vents through the chimney and my old furnace used to. My basement’s unfinished so the PVC vent pipe isn’t an issue.
It's amazing what you can do with politiburo aparatchiks with either a little bribe or a healthy threat and intimidation.
If they wanna play that game, thinking it's a new game? I've got the fix for their zampolit.
/johnny
Regardless of new technology.. who are you to say when someone has to replace their furnace?
Please Please tell me your live in Maine or NH?
install one of these or a device like it.
http://plumbing.hardwarestore.com/108-603-well-pump-parts/3-4-water-pressure-regulator—636483.aspx
our house has one. My shower use to have a heart beat. Now it’s steady and the demand water heater works just fine. Although I am rather sure it has a flow meter and can adjust on the fly to different flow rates.
I don’t know about the efficiency of a gas furnace, but I do know of two separate family members who got CO2 poisoning because of faulty furnaces. Both suffered severe brain damage as a result.
My daughter has a gas furnace vented directly into her chimney. There is only about two feet distance between them. To vent hers through a wall would require about fifteen feet of horizontal run and I would not trust it.
I have vent free heaters in my bedrooms and keep a window open slightly to provide air.
In my den I installed a ventless fireplace and I immediately began to have problems with fumes in the den. After a couple of years, I pulled out the burner and found that the air inlet to the mixing chamber was only two drilled 1/4 inch holes. I then drilled a third hole and have had no problems since.
What makes me wonder about the fireplace is that I purchased it FROM MY GAS COMPANY! They should have known better!
You can repair old furnaces you just can’t legally install them after their deadline.
Hey, if they want to spend a ton of money to keep using their old one, fine with me. Lots of people don’t really have a choice, because their homes would be very hard to retrofit with aerogel insulation.
However, a lot of people would jump at the opportunity to save big bucks. Importantly, their doing so would drive down the price of HHO for everybody left. So it’s a win-win.
And because refineries very carefully calculate how much of what refined petroleum they expect to sell in the next year, if the demand for HHO drops, then they will want to refine more gasoline, dropping its price as well.
First of all, you need two pipes, a combustion inlet and an outlet vent. And they must be separated by at least four feet. Code also calls for a 6 inch diameter insulated outside connection to the cold air side of the furnace air and also an automatic damper on it. You must also deal with the acidic condensate. If you don't have a drain near the furnace, you may need a condensate reservor and pump. Then you also need some place to pump it.
Why wouldn’t you trust a horizontal vent pipe? You have to support it every four feet and if it sags you will get condensate buildup in the pipe and your pressure switch will shut the gas valve off. The safeties on furnaces these days prevent lots of problems from getting out of hand.
Wow - sure makes me glad the guy’s coming tomorrow to finish installing my new 92% efficient gas furnace - no more oil, not that there’s anything wrong with that...
LOL,
Me, I never worry about CO2 either. My windows are so old and breezy, I couldn’t die of monoxide poisoning if I tried with a gas grill!
No money = no new windows. Oh Well!
until we burn down every tree on my in laws land (and I don’t think we can) we won’t be paying for heat other than the small amount of gas to run the spliter and saws.
we only use grid fuel (natural gas) when we will be gone longer than the fire will burn.
I get your point but your post read like you where demanding we make changes. That won’t fly with me.
On a more serious note, if you have an older gas furnace, I don’t care which brand (***ox comes to mind)every other year of so, pay your service man to DYE CHECK the manifold. Its a simple procedure, and is extremely accurate in detecting cracks in the unit. Manifold cracks are killers. Literally.
HEEHEEHEE. No fooling.
The keyword in your sentence: “legally.”
Ever see DeNiro in Brazil?
Not being a smart@ss, just sayin. Americans are enterprising people.
There is so much legitimate work that needs doing why mess with it when you can do stuff that will have less of a chance biting you in the rear in the future?
“I don’t remember that running twenty feet of three inch plastic pipe cost all that much.”
We remodeled 15 years ago and put in a flue for a new furnace which we had removed when we re-roofed a year ago because we put in a 92% efficiency furnace which used 3 inch plastic for both the combustion air intake as well as the exhaust. Knock on wood, the thing has worked great. It’s so efficient that it has a “condensate pump” that pumps the water from the combustion process into the sewer.
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