I'm looking into buying a new furnace, and looking into the numbers. As it turns out, what the furnace guy told my wife, and reality are two very different things, so I was thinking of posting a web-site which describes how to make a realistic estimate of the real cost of one furnace over another. I'll let you know when it's done
The long and the short of it is that a furnace does not pay itself off over two to three years (unless your yearly gas bill is close to double the price of the new furnace, and you're moving from an 50% to
90% furnace...). Realisticly, you're looking at 8-10 years. As well, if you take time-value-of-money into account, the high-efficiency furnaces don't look as appealing. Everything depends on your gas bill, and current furnace of course, but I'll post all of that.