I've decided to take my own advice and look in to getting a new
natural gas furnace and AC unit installed before the $1500 tax credit
runs out at the end of the year. Not much time left, I know. To get
the credit, it has to be at least 13 EER, and 16 SEER. My old
system is a 26 year old RUUD and I figure between the tax credit and
higher efficiency saving energy costs, it's time to do it.
Anyone have any recommendations as to brands/models that they have had
good results with or those to avoid? Any particular features? I'm
thinking it's going to be worth it to get a high enough efficiency
system to meet the $1500 tax credit, but probably don't need anything
more than that. Any features you've found useful on newer systems and
would recommend? Things like variable speed blowers, dual stage,
etc? But honestly, the current one is fine in terms of comfort,
can't complain about drafts, etc. The house is 3200 sq ft, current
furnace is 150K BTU input, 4.5 ton AC. Location is coastal NJ, with
high gas and electricity rates.
I know what one guy here will say, ie just keep running the old
one.....
We've just done a series on selecting the best brands and efficiencies to
meet your goals. While it's focused on furnace replacement, the advice
should apply to air conditioning as well.
http://www.trusthomesense.com/blog/furnace-replacement-options-indianapolis-part-ii-brand-shopping /
http://www.trusthomesense.com/blog/furnace-replacement-in-indianapolis-part-iii-efficiency-options /
Hope this is helpful,
-------------------------------------
Brian
Homesense Heating | Cooling
www.TrustHomesense.com
On Fri, 03 Dec 2010 20:14:01 +0000,
brian_at_trusthomesense_dot snipped-for-privacy@foo.com (brians) wrote:
I had four guys out last month to look at my house, for a new oil
furnace and AC. It would have only been three, but the first company
struck me as incompetent, and indeed, I don't think they ever got back
to me with even a price! I called them because they did my new next
door neighbor's AC (her new home insurance paid for it, on a 31-year
old house! Amazing, I think.) and she was satisfied, and they are only
4 blocks away
It might have only been two estimates, but they waylaid me in Home
Depot and were so eager to send someone, who am I to say no.
My concentration is not what it used to be, and I've never been good
at shopping for complicated things****, and before this started, I
assumed that every company would either include a furnace humidifier
in the price (and force people who didn't want one to notice and get
them to take it off), or would try to sell me a humidifier. In fact,
none of them even mentioned it! But I remembered to ask the last guy
and he pooh poohed the idea. Said I didn't need one. Baloney. I had
one for 20 plus years, and it makes the house feel just as warm even
when the temp is lower. Yes, it takes some heat to evaporate (is that
the same as vaporize?) the water, but it's a substantial net savings,
I'm sure. I think the temp can be 2 to 4 degrees cooler when the
humidity is "normal", neither high nor low, as opposed to the dryness
of a northern winter indoors with a furnace and no source of humidity.
****Except cars.
I've never had condensation problems, on windows or anywhere, probably
because I don't set the humidifier to maximum, even the cheap little
one I have had.
Plus it's good for the furniture not to be in air so dry the furniture
cracks. Especially pianos and expensive furniture. And maybe
violins and woodwinds. Of course if you haven't had one up till now,
maybe all the cracking it can do has been done already. I don't know,
you'll have to ask a furniture guy about that. But you may get new,
expensive furniture and a humidifier is good. (When my brother was in
Viet Nam during the war, he bought a wooden carving of someone, about
9 inches tall by 2" wide, and it got cracks the entire length of the
carving, 3/16" wide!)
Anyhow, he wanted 800 dollars for the humidifier. When I squinted, he
said his wholesale cost was 600. The most expensive one at Home Depot
is less than 200, and I don't believe it's much worse. In addition,
he didn't have a flyer for the furnace! but he did for the humidifier,
and it was a bypass humidifier, which requires a round (flexible?)
duct from the return to the humidifier, which is in the furnace
outgoing duct. Because of how my furnace and every replacement I've
looked at my neighbors' houses is set up, it's too thick to fit
between the duct and the flue. But I know what would happen if I
signed the contract. They'd include it, and half way through
installation they 'd come to me and say it won't fit so they're going
to skip it.
Online however they have a Honeywell (non-bypass) Humidifier for under
200 that gets good ratings. I might buy that first and have them put
it in. Amazon sells it, among other places, and says "People who have
e bought this also bought this humidistat." One annoyed guy
commented that he had taken their word for this and bought a
humidistat, only to find that one is included with the humidifier.
Not surprisingly. I can get you the model number if you want, but so
far it was the only name brand, the only non-bypass humidifier I've
found.
Because of the space problem, 25 years ago, I could only install the
smallest and cheapest humidifier they sold, about 20 dollars, but it
was definitely good enough. I bought a second one about 10 years
later. It seemed a better buy than just buying a replacement entry
valve, but they don't sell that brand anymore and I haven't come
across anything nearly as cheap. They are all about 180 dollars iirc.
Less online I guess, but if I could get what I want in a store, I'd
probably buy it locally. I haven't looked at heating supply places.
Don't know one, and don't know how to get them to wait on me**
But I'll still tell you about the old one. My house is smaller than
yours, but I only used about 3 of the maximum 8 T-shaped fiberglass
"plates" that went in the water trough. The w
**although I had no trouble getting them to wait on me 27 years ago
when the transformer of my AC/furnace control box burnt out 2 months
after I bought a four-year old house, when I had 3 people visiting
from NY***. I went to a supply house and he wanted 140 dollars for
the whole control box, and I balked a bit, and he sold me just a
transformer for about 15! It was too big to fit where the original had
been so it's mounted on a shelf nearby. The furnace may have some
problems in the fire box, not sure, but the control box works fine
after 27 years. (Well, there was a time when it didn't. Another story)
***The AC went out at noon on Saturday, because the little transformer
failed; The water went out about 6 PM on Saturday, because the builder
didn't use flexible metal water pipe for the mains, and may have used
gravel that was too big, leaving the pipes resting on apexes of big
gravel pieces; And the electricity went out about noon on Sunday,
because everyone was using the AC and the transformer that supplied 8
or 16 townhouses burnt out, or something in it!
Another strange thing is that onely one of them tried to sell me
anything that would qualify for the tax credit. Maybe that's because
they didn't think I could afford it, but that's silly because with the
credit, it would usually cost no more than what they were trying to
sell me! In fact, you may want to plug in your own numbers, but my
impression about the AC was that the cheapest qualifying AC is more
expensive than the next less efficient one by the same amount as the
credit. That is, you get the upgrade to the better model for free,
but you don't really save money other than that, on the purchase. This
should be fairly easy to calculate with assurance. You get a refund of
so much percent, so many dollars, and you can find out the increase in
price from the model one step less efficient. (Or you can just buy
one. I wish I were capable of just buying one.)
And thn you save some money every year after that. Although even the
13 SEER (or whatever) is probably a good deal more efficient than what
you have, and the one that qualifies for the credit is only a little
more efficient than the one right below it that doesn't qualify.
(I need an oil furnace, so, while I ended up learning about gas too,
others can probably answer better.)
Very few oil burners are 90% efficient, and I guess they are
expensive. One of the oldest places in town, in the same family for
80 or 90 years, 3rd generation, told me almost no one buys those, so
the only part of the oil furnace that qualifies is a multi-speed fan.
Now unlike 30 years ago when the fan was one speed any time it's
running, now every fan has 2 speeds, one for AC and one for heat, but
multi-speed fans, ECM's, Electronically Controlled Motors (Fans), have
multiple speeds for different parts of the heating cycle and the
cooling cycle. In an oil furnace, 19 to 24 percent of the furnace
cost can be attributed to the fan -- the furnace company will tell you
the number -- and then one can get the credit on that part of the
furnace. But again, no one tried to sell me the mulit-speed fan, and
the guy with the 90 years and great reputation told me he didn't sell
oil furnaces with multi-speed fans. He said that on the phone, and he
wasn't one who came out for an estimate. I thought no one made them
but they do.
I still haven't found out how the multi-speed fan works, when it's low
speed, when it's mid-speed, and when it's high, and why it saves
money. It's seems clear that the fan uses a lot of current,
especially on high speed, but how it uses less when it's multi-speed,
and still gets the job done, I don't know. Frankly, my single speed
fan gets the job done, and only runs when the heat is on (or the AC)
which isn't that long in suburban Baltimore, and I like the feeling of
the blowing warm air. There's a duct right next to me when I sit at
the computer. I still don't have any idea what benefit I woudl get
from a multi-speed fan. Also, if the circulating air doesn't
circulate through the furnace fast enough, currently that would be a
problem. I don't know what could be different about modern furnaces,
oil or gas, that would make that different.
BTW, I've bbeen reading instructinos for installing AC, and they say
to flush and/or clean the pipes connecting the inside to the outside.
After 31 years, it seems worth it, and simpler, to replace them. IN
my case they are only about 6 feet long.
A agree with you on the value of a good humidifier. As long as you
set it correctly,
it keeps the house far more comfortable, avoids those static shocks,
etc, without
water condensing and doing damage. I currently have an Aprilaire 700,
which is only
a year old and I plan on having them move it to the new furnace. Over
the years
I've seen so many positive comments on Aprilaire and I agree with
them. It's the
best one I've seen. The 700 is a non-bypass model and it includes an
outdoor
temp sensor so that it autmatically reduces the humidity level as the
outdoor temp
drops.
It's amazing that they didn't mention or directly show you the tax
benefits.
The first company I have coming prominently features that in their
newspaper
ads. And I was thinking the same thing that you say above. That
the tax
credit is likely enough to about pay for the difference in price
between a somewhat
less efficient system that I might have bought vs one that meets the
reqts for
the credit. I think here there may also be a $1000 utility credit.
Combined that
could cut $2500 off the price, which is substantial.
I think one way it saves energy by using a lower speed when it can is
that with any fluid the energy it takes to move it increases
logarithmatically
with the speed. For example, with pool pumps, they now have multi-
speed
that circulate the water slowly for a much longer time. Even though
it runs
longer, it still moves the same amount of water with like 50% less
energy.
Also, I think the most efficient motors are now DC, which generally
are
completely variable in speed. But that's probably an example of what
I
would skip, because while it can save some more energy, it does add
complexity and if that motor, controller, etc fail, from what I've
heard, it's
a lot more costly than a two speed motor.
Good info. That's one thing I might not have thought to even ask. I
would
have assumed that considering mine are 26 years old, they would just
automatically replace them. Seems that would make sense for not only
the company, but also the manufacturer with their warrantly, etc. I
definitely want mine replaced.
Thanks for all the info.
On 12/3/2010 2:46 PM, snipped-for-privacy@optonline.net wrote:
We replaced our very old Columbia gas fired, forced hot-air furnace and
our old Ruud A/C unit 4-7 years ago - both with Carrier units. I won't
bother you with the model name/number because just as with cars, the
model names and numbers change almost yearly. We have not required a
single service call for either since installation and have been totally
pleased.
We chose a furnace model that is 92% efficient and saw our natural gas
consumption drop about 1/3 with no additional insulation added to the
house and no change in our thermostat settings. The HVAC guy estimated
that our old furnace was probably only about 60% efficient. The
difference in price at that time between 92% and 96% efficient was huge
(about 25% more) and we figured that we were unlikely to remain in our
house long enough to make back in gas expenses what we would pay for the
additional 4% in furnace efficiency if we popped for the 96% unit.
We had been having a problem with chronic refrigerant leaks in the old
A/C unit despite spending oodles to try to find the leak (never did).
The system needed at least a top-off and sometimes more than that every
season. Therefore, when we replaced the A/C, we not only replaced the
coil in the furnace and the compressor outside, but we replaced all the
pipes connecting them. We're glad that we did. No more leaks and our
A/C electric usage dropped by about 50% during the hottest summer
months. (We're in the D.C. metro area.)
The bottom line as someone else wrote is to find and use a well
qualified and honest HVAC contractor. For each job, we got 3 different
bids from contractors that were highly recommended in the D.C. area
edition of Checkbook magazine. For both jobs we ended up going with the
same contractor. Both times his bid was in the middle - about 10%
higher than the lowest bid and about 30% cheaper than the most expensive
one. We'd use him again in a heartbeat. Good luck in your area!
Can someone explain why you need a contractor to install a furnace?
If you're a real red-blooded, meat-eating man who knows how to swing a
hammer, turn a wrench and wire a branch circuit, then you most certainly
can connect a few wires and bend some sheet metal and get a furnace
installed, and most of the A/C as well (assuming you need a new A/C
unit).
If I could wind back the clock and play a role in installing my furnace
and AC, I'd install a bypass duct so that my furnace fan doesn't have to
blow air through the AC coils in the winter.
If I *had* to buy a new furnace - then I'd buy a new furnace, gut the
shit out of it (rip out the electronics, ECM motor and ignitor) and
install conventional AC motor and standing pilot light, then I'd install
the thing myself.
I hope you're right, because that's my current plan. I'm out of work
again, except for a little bit on a maintenance project, and I have
more time than money. Plus if I actually have heat and AC when I'm
done, it will be very satisfying. (I'm going to hire someone to
remove the current freon, and come back later and adjust the furnace,
and connect and top off the AC.)
I'm hoping the hardest part will be getting the furnace down the
stairs! That will be hard, and I'll get a helper to do that, and
maybe ask advice here about a ramp or how to go one step at a time.
(It's a U shaped stairs, with two 90 degree turns on one landing.)
Is that really so bad? Everyone does it that way, don't they? If I
had it to do over, I would cut out a big hole for cleaning the thing,
and make a sheet metal cover. Right now, I have no idea how dirty it
is after 31 years.
Sort of instead of bypass duct, how about about a very wide duct, with
a piece of light metal plate that slides in grooves, to narrow the
duct in the summer so the air has to go through the A- or N-coil.^^^
Sort of like one of those sheets they slide in the box a woman is in
when they cut her in half.
^^^(Does anyone still sell A-coils? I'd really like to know. If so,
aren't N-coils a lot better?)
What's wrong with a) the electronics, b) the ECM motor, and c) the
ignitor^^. Seriously. My oil furnace will have a and maybe b, so
I'm interested. Don't they make things work more smoothly?
^^Okay, I know what's wrong with the ignitor, but you must have some
experience if you think you can put in a pilot, especially on a
furnace designed for an ignitor. More than the average red-blooded
meat-eating man.
Isn't it easier to install the way they sell it? IF those extra parts
are unreliable, when they actually break, you can put in the simple
replacements then.
I found a "book" online for 10 dollars on how to install a furnace.
Only 50 pages**, but it spends a good portion of its space on how to
do ductwork at the furnace, which is what I know the least about. But
be warned. He didn't send the download code that night, or after my
first two complaint emails, until after 4 weeks I complained to
PayPal. Then they sent me the code the same day. I was seriously
suspecting there was no book at all. But it doesn't deal at all with
installing even the N-coil, or the AC, or a humidifier. I guess I can
figure all that stuff out, but for a newbie like me, I would like
help. As it is, I'll have to wait to spring, because I'm afraid
some roadblock will take me a week, or a month, or two months, and I
can't be without heat that long. I wish I'd started 10 months ago,
but the AC compressor didnt' start tripping the breaker until June.
**There is also a similar book on Amazon, twice the price and half the
length. Maybe if the print is quite small it has more info, but 25
pages for 20 or so dollars doesn't seem like a good bet to me.
The book I got said the hardest part is getting someone to sell you
the furnace!
I do a lot of my own projects, but installing a furnace/AC is not one
I'd tackle.
IMO, there are just two many issues. Examples would be correctly
sizing
the new furnace. I guess you could run the load calcualtions and you
do
have the experience with the current unit to go on. But I still
think that could
be an area where years of expertise could come in handy. For
example, my
current unit is 150K BTU input. I don't even know how that relates
to the current
specs of units. From looking, it seems most are a lot smaller than
that. Given
that it's 26 years old, my guess would be that I can easily get away
with a much
smaller new one. But exactly how much smaller, I'd prefer to get a
pro to tell me.
Then as you pointed out, you have the issue of removing the freon,
charging the new
system, etc. I guess if you know someone that will do it, that could
be dealt with.
But I wouldn't know who to call around here that would even consider
getting involved.
Then, what about the warranty? If you install it yourself, isn't the
warranty likely voided?
I'd also look at the specific reqts for the tax credit, ie what
documentation, etc is required.
That might preclude self-install.
You're also aware that the tax credit requires it to be installed by
the end of this year, right?
Doing a self-install, I guess one advantage might be that you could
fudge it a bit.
I don;t know, but I think you may be surprised how easy it is. IMO,
the
new one is likely to weigh substantially less than the old one. The
downside
to that is that from everything I've seen here, the new ones aren't
likely to
last the 26 years that the old one did.
First thing you'd have to do is figure out if it actually saves you
enough
energy costs in terms of reducing the air resistance or if it even
saves
any money at all. You're substituting at least one, if not two 90deg
turns
for the coils. I'd love to see any data that shows it's worth it.
Home Guy is the poster I was referring to in my original post when I
said
I know what one guy will tell me. Which is to just keep running the
26
year old system, because it's the smart thing to do. He thinks the
new
systems have too much complexity, so they are more failure prone, cost
more to repair, etc. He has a point. But given the current tax
credit,
utility rebates, energy costs, etc, it's hard to imagine how we won't
come
out ahead. You'd think that if he were rational, he's at least use a
new
system as it was made and wait for it to fail, then find out how much
the
part costs before ripping it apart and rebuilding it. Since he's so
concerned
about maintenance cost, I wonder what ripping it apart does to the
warranty?
:)
Let us know how the install goes for you. From some of the botched
up
jobs I've seen, you do have one edge over at least some of the pros.
You
obviously care about doing it right.
snipped-for-privacy@optonline.net wrote in
<snip> >
Ditto.
My primary concern would be CO2 - the venting, burner, etc especially with
forced air. I'm sure many would say Ahhh nothing to it, don't have to worry
about that, that's overkill BS, etc. Then a house full of dead people shows
up.
A Local Authority inspection just might not be a bad thing with this type
of DIY.
I was speaking more about the furnace, not the AC. The furnace is just
a glorified barbeque unit. If you were replacing the AC as well, then I
guess it depends on what parts of the old system you were keeping -
naturally the outdoor unit would be replaced, but the evaporator coils
near the furnace could stay.
As I haven't had the need to shop for a furnace, I don't know how many
of them come with integrated evaporator coils (or perhaps none of them).
Because I have lots of space around my furnace, I'd probably get
creative and build a separate air-handling system for the furnace and
evap coils - there's no reason why both air systems need to go through
the furnace. I could have a separate motor and filter for summer use,
and with some sheet-metal ducting and gating I can easily change the
system over to winter heating and completely bypass the evap coils.
Another thing I'd do for the summer system is to have the ability to
draw return air directly from the outside through a dedicated duct and
gate off (close off) the return air from the house-hold interior return
air duct. This allows me to pull cool air directly from outside and
force-flood the house with cool air - on those warm or hot days where
the house has warmed up by evening and your only normal option is to run
the AC to cool the house. So I pull cool return air from outside, open
some windows and the fan will force the warm air out the windows.
None of this is normally done, because home-owners can't imagine or
don't know about this, and HVAC contractors would charge a fortune to do
it for someone else, but I bet some of them do it for their own homes.
Just like some of them put their AC condensor coils in their swimming
pool to heat their pool while efficiently removing heat from the coils.
New furnaces with variable gas valves gives them the ability to dial up
or down the heat output.
I do this right now with my 34 year-old furnace. I dial down the gas
going to the burners so that maybe they're getting 1/3 of the full gas
supply. If I turn it down too far, the fan cycles on and off while the
burners are on. By turning down the gas, I'm modulating the heat output
of the furnace much like a super-expensive modern furnace does. So my
furnace runs more constantly (like a modern furnace does) and my
heat-extraction efficiency goes up (because the temperature of my
combustion exhaust is lower).
Most people don't know that they can dial-down the gas supply of their
old furnace - just like you can with your barbeque or your gas stove.
There's no reason why you need to operate an old furnace heat-output
either full-on or full-off.
If I find that in the coldest part of winter that my furnace is running
all the time but the house temperature is lower than I want, then I'll
just go down to the furnace and turn the gas valve at the regulator a
little more clock-wise and increase the size of the flames and that will
do the job.
I agree that you need a contractor to deal with freon extraction,
balancing, charging, etc, but the more you can do yourself (like run the
lines, connect as much of the system as you can) the more you'll save.
That's why I'd preferr to retro-fit the furnace with standard technology
and do away with all the sensors.
It's crazy that they removed the standing pilot light (which uses maybe
$10 worth of gas all year) and they went with electronic ignition, and
by doing so they had to add all sorts of temperature sensors to know if
the main gas supply should be shut off in case the ignitor doesn't
work. Talk about over-kill to save $10 worth of gas (even less if you
normally turn off your pilot light in the summer).
I reject all attempts to sell me warranties for the things I buy. We
all laugh at the warranties that are sold at electronic stores - don't
we?
Do you think I'd replace an ECM furnace motor with another ECM furnace
motor? Hell no. If I didn't already retrofit a new furnce with a
regular AC motor, I would certainly do that if the ECM motor died on
me. To hell with the warranty. It's less agrivating to fix most things
yourself than to deal with the warranty (the exception - vehicles).
Most electronics have a manufacturer warranty anyways, and their small/
portable enough the shlep them back to the retailer or manufacturer when
they break.
I bet that most HVAC companies have hiked their prices because they know
that home-owners are getting these gov't rebates.
I'd rather spend $2000 on a new furnace and install it myself, rather
than spend $6000 to have a contractor install it and then later I get
$2000 back in gov't credits. Do the math.
In what country?
Once the credits are gone, contractor prices will also come down.
Once it fails, it's too late to tinker and retro-fit it with standard
technology. You don't have that luxury when your house needs the heat.
Well, if it no longer has an electronic ignitor, control motherboard and
ECM motor, then why exactly should I care about the warranty for those
items?
:)
I don't like all the fail safe points on the new furnaces, because any
one of them failing can leave you without heat.
But you've got your work cut out to modify as you want to.
First, toss the motherboard.
Toss the ignitor.
Toss the flame sensor.
Toss the roll out sensors.
Toss the inducer, or unplug it.
Find a thermocouple controlled gas valve that will fit in place of the
electronically controlled valve that came with the unit.
Rig a pilot light.
Then figure out what to do with the many loose wires, how to relay the
main fan speed (you tossed the existing relays with the motherboard),
decide whether to rig an over temp sensor, etc.
You might need to rig a new transformer if that was on the
motherboard. I don't know.
I briefly considered replacing the motherboard on mine when I was
mentally shotgunning parts (I only wasted 6 bucks on an inducer
diaphragm valve.)
The mass of wires connected to the motherboard scared me off.
I always got it going again by cleaning the flame sensor.
Even if I had just cleaned it a couple days ago.
Main fan was always inconsistent too, sometimes running for a minute
after flame off, sometimes not.
When the main fan relay (on motherboard) stuck so there was only low
speed - not enough to heat/cool - I called in a pro.
He had it going in 10 seconds by flexing the motherboard.
Said it could stick again, so I had him put in a new motherboard.
Took the pro about 15 minutes to replace the motherboard.
He only cussed twice.
No problems for the 3 years since.
That motherboard was flaky from the getgo.
I think flaky/failing motherboards are the biggest problem with
modern furnaces, not the sensors.
Heat, undersized relays, etc.
A flame sensor problem is easy to diagnose - gas valve opens, then
closes. Cleaning sensor with steel wool always fixed that.
Ignitor failure is easy to diagnose - inducer clicks diaphragm switch,
and no glow within 15 seconds. Replaced one ignitor.
MB leds give that info too.
Sensors and ignitors are cheap and easy to replace.
Motherboards cost hundreds - think mine was $320.
Came across a post somewhere where a guy had 2 Carrier motherboards
fail in 4 years, so he wired external relays to take the load and the
3rd motherboard has lasted 6-7 years so far.
Next time I get a furnace I'll call up the same pro and pay for a
service call just to pick his brain on this type of thing before I
make my decision.
Problem is, as somebody else said, models are always changing, and
some reliable models get discontinued.
Almost like buying a first year model car - you don't know what bad
was engineered into it.
Then, if you talk to a pro repairman who also does installs you have
to be wary of his prejudices. It's human nature.
Anyway, I wager you won't try to do the modifications I've mentioned
when you replace that old furnace.
I'm a gambling man (-:
Wouldn't mind being wrong on that bet though if you come back and tell
us how you did it.
--Vic
Can't figure out whether you are serious or pulling our legs about
making such comprehensive and radical "modifications" to the modern high
efficiency gas furnace. I suspect that anyone following your advice
would end up with a system that (1) was substantially less efficient
than it could/should be, and (2) was unsafe to the point of probably
failing many or even most safety codes for using natural gas furnaces in
private residences.
Are you a believer in conspiracy theories that the all the manufacturers
of these furnaces got together and agreed to intentionally fill their
products with expensive, unnecessary and failure-prone components so
that they all could reap larger profits?
You would have to be. Otherwise, at least one or two of the companies
would leave out many or all the components you advise removing and
advertise that their products were equally safe, equally efficient, but
much more reliable and less expensive that their competitors that
include those components.
I don't know squat about engineering a gas furnace, but your advice just
doesn't compute with me.
On Sat, 4 Dec 2010 06:23:19 -0800 (PST), snipped-for-privacy@optonline.net wrote:
The four guys who came out to give estimates all just assumed I should
use the same size I have now. 80,000 BTU and 2.5 ton AC, for 1400 sq.
ft. (and a 700 below grad basement) Both of which are big enough, and
neither too big afaict.
One guy said, "I guess you dont' want to run new ducts" and I agreed,
and he said, "Well then we can skip [something or other]." The others
just ignored it. I have 108 neighbors with identical houses, and I've
seen the new installation one got this past summer, and it looks just
like it used to, but new and shiny. The size of the furnace wasn't
apparent, but based on what you say, I think I should/can look at the
AC label. I'm trying to look at some more new furnaces.
The input would be smaller because they are more efficient. But
shouldn't the output be the same as it was? The quotient is the
efficiency.
Well, you have a full-time job, so you don't have more time than
money, so if you're going to have it installed, they should do the
up-front work too, like sizing. But the four guys I had, say 3, not
counting the guy who never got back to me, didn't do anything. I'll
admit, I forgot to ask them to do a load calculation, or whatever, and
that was when I was seriously planning to hire one of them. Now that
I'm tending the other way, I don't want to call anyone else and soak
up his time.
The guys, father and son, who were doing the house next door said they
would. Before I talked about hiring them directly, they pointed to 3
houses in eye-sight that they had done here, working for an oil
company. One of them my friend's whose new furnace I had checked out.
We didn't talk price yet. My friend had talked to Sears, I think,
and they said oil furnaces were not so common and the best way was to
go through an oil supply company, because they had guys who did mostly
oil.
Probably. That's a problem. Mostly, I'm assuming since the current
one lasted 31 years, that this one won't fail before the warranty is
out anyhow, but that's foolish if it does fail. I'm also assuming if
I don't drop it hard while taking it down the steps, it won't fail and
if I do drop it, it's my fault. So "Don't drop it."
Depending on how much the guys I hire do, he may be be willing to sign
off on it. That assumes he himself has a license, but he should. The
father and son were the only ones doing the install next door.
Yes, it does iirc. But because I made so little money and will pay
so little taxes, most of the credit isn't available to me anyhow.
Yes. Thanks.
I have the form. I didn't check if you have to copy the receipt, but
maybe. I thought of prepaying, even if the installation was
afterwards. Taht's bad if they guys drop dead or something, and if I
pay for the furnace in advance, that means having to store it until
spring and moving it from my mini-storage locker to my house. Another
imposition on my friend with a truck. I have a 4'x 8' trailer which
is rated 1000 pounds, and this is 200 pounds (or 300?) but the trailer
still seems flimsy for this.
I have a hard time appreciating how much 200 pounds are. I may have
moved that much before, with a helper, but didn't know how much I
moved weighed. Last year another guy and I moved a refrigerator up
from a basement.
Hmmmm. I'm 63 and there's a chance I'll still be in this house when
I'm 87. I doubt I'll be able to do it myself then... so I have to
save money now, to have enough money then. :)
Well, it was his idea, and conditioned on his doing it himself. So we
may never know. I'm not in the mood to do anymore duct-making than
necessary. Plus I'd never remember to move the plate out of the way
in the summer and back in in the winter. I already forget to change
the filter as soon as I should.
LOL
Yes. Who knows? Maybe when it comes down to it, that's what he will
do. A short story. The ignition on my furnace used to trip off and
require pressing a button for reset. Maybe 5 times a year for 2, 3,
or 4 years. I don't know why. It would run for a month after I
pressed the reset button, which pushed something in a latching relay
that reset it. Then the relay wouldn't reset. (Today it would be
transistorized, I assume). I took the cover off the 1" relay and
tried to find the problem or clean it or point-file the relay
contacts, but probably I coudln't get in there to do that. No luck.
I tried to buy a replacement latching relay, but couldn't, even in
some big catalogs, like Mouser (the whole control panel was 140
dollars 10 years earlier, so more now.) I thought about getting an
almost-replacement relay that wouldn't fit the circuit board, but
could hang from wires attached to the circuit board, but temporarilly,
I put it back together again, and then it reset fine! Except it never
trips anymore anyhow. That was 10 years ago and it hasnt' tripped in
7, 9, maybe 10 years. I'm amazed.
But during this time, I kept my eyes open and when a neighbor got a
new furnace, I asked them and then saved their old burner, including
the control panel (for when mine breaks), pump, transformer, etc.. It
takes up a lot of space, a cardobard carton, a cube 30 inches on each
side. If I get a new furnace, I can get rid of it.
;-)
Another strange thing about the book. He only spends a couple
sentences on it, but he's firm that one should install new wires to
the thermostat! That's ridiculous in general -- my wires are like
new, and they're certainly not going to short or open. And in my
house I think snaking the wire would be a lot of trouble. He also
recommended the bricks under the furnace. The previous thread where I
asked about that was written at a friend's house on his computer, so
it doesn't use my name.
Yes, I almost always get things right the first time I do something.
It's the third time when I screw up.
There are 8 things to connect.
The AC. Easy.
The thermostat. Easy
The oil line. Easy if I can just use what I have. Pretty easy if I
have to bend the tubing too much to get the new furnace in, and have
to put in a union to make the shortened tubing longer.
The flue. My neighbor's is done just like it was, and could have used
the same pipes, but I'll probably get new too. It's just 4 pieces
until it goes out of sight behind the furnace. 2 or 3 more pieces
to the chimney. So, pretty easy. Getting the parts is the hard
part.
The input duct.
The output duct. He spends a bunch of space on how to do this. I
realize now that there are no left-hand or right-hand furnaces. I
have to cut the big hole for the return air duct. No big deal to
cut the hole. Have to see how my duct is currently connected.
The control wires to the compressor outside. Easy
The freon pipes. I'll pay to have that done. The AC comes
pre-charged, so I won't have to buy much freon, if any. I should
get that part of the price settled in advance. The same
guy, or guys, will adjust the combustion.
Yes, and we both still run windows 98. Because I'm that type of "Guy".
Yes, that would work as well.
Electronics are fine in my den, but not my furnace. Just read these
home / hvac forums for how many people have had to replace various
sensors and main boards and how much those parts can cost. ECM motor is
a complete crock of shit. You save maybe 100 watts compared to running
a 1/4 HP AC motor (which is about 1 penny an hour, or about $100 a year
if the fan is running 24/7/365) but the motor will run you $400 to $800
to replace if it breaks. Besides, the extra 100 watts goes into heat
that you can use in the winter anyways. And the ignitor - ask how many
people have had issues with those.
You'd really only know once you have the unit taken apart. I would
assume that you'd simply place the pilot light in the same spot the
ignitor is located, and the flames will spread to the burners the exact
same way.
Sure it's easier, but...
Then it's too late. You need the heat, and you don't have the time to
perform custom mods. The best time to do it is when your old furnace is
still up and running.
Instructions:
1) shut off your gas valve which should be located 6 feet from your
furnace. Shut off the electrical service to the furnace at your main
breaker panel.
2) disconnect thermostat and AC power from the furnace cabinet.
disconnect the gas line from the furnace.
3) disconnect the return air and plenum ductwork from the furnace
cabinet. Leave AC coils in place in their duct. Support with wires
from above if necessary.
4) move old furnace out of the way, move new furnace into place.
5) modify ductwork as needed.
6) connect ac power and thermostat wires to new furnace.
7) connect natural gas line to furnace. modify pipe lengths and bends
as necessary. use pipe sealant as directed.
8) turn on gas valve to furnace. check for leaks (use soapy water if
you want).
9) turn on AC power to furnace at main breaker panel.
10) program your thermostat as desired.
I also suspect that would be the situation. The bastards...
That sure puts a perspective on things. Windows 98 was notoriously
crash prone,
difficult to protect from a security standpoint and everyone I know
was happy to see
it replaced by newer OS's that were far superior. There is no
comparison to current
OS products. What exactly do you have against the new OS's?
Then we have the fact that with just about any new PC you buy today,
you wind up
getting the latest OS included as part of the price. HP is selling a
midrange computer
with an AMD Phenom II quad core, 4GB of RAM, 650MB of disk, CD ROM
drive, Win 7
Microsoft Office and Norton Internet Security for $425 with free
shipping, So, either you're re-installing
Win98 on new computers, which seems rather improbable given the lack
of Win98 drivers for
current hardware, or you're still using a 15 to 20 year old PC. Still
on dialup too?
Ok, I don't want this thread to seriously derail at this point, so I
will simply say that there are reasons why people perceived win-98 to be
seriously flawed that had more to do with the quality of computers and
hardware available in 1999-2000, like faulty video drivers and
pathetically small amounts of installed ram. There is a very healthy
and active community of people that run win-98 on moderm motherboards
with 512mb of ram (and up to several gb). As I type this, I'm running a
P4 2.5 ghz PC with 512 mb ram and 2 hard drives (80 gb and 400 gb SATA)
with KernelEx API enhancements (which lets me run quite a bit of XP-only
software).
Very reliable and stable, hardly touchable by any of the hundreds of
exploits for NT-based windows systems. XP was the emperor with no
clothes. It was a disaster for the first 4 years of it's life. We live
with spam today because of all the home systems that used XP from 2002
through 2006 that got infected with backdoor trojans that turned them
into botnets. It was a crime for Microsoft to force XP into home
computers back in 2002, and it really wasn't fit enough for home use
until SP2. But everyone conveinently forgets XP's history in that
regard.
Complete myth.
There never were any network worms that could work on win-98 systems.
Meanwhile there were about 6 different worms over the past 7 years that
can infect NT/XP systems just by them having an internet connection - no
user intervention required.
NT/XP was designed to be used by corporations and enterprises on closed
networks, behind firewalls, managed by IT departments. It's only since
mid 2006 (XP-SP2) did it become somewhat secure for the average
home-owner/user to use XP without help and protection from an on-site IT
staff.
Go to secunia.org and look at the security issues for different versions
of windows. Win-98 has a pathetically small number of issues (33?) -
many of them of low importance. Meanwhile, XP has hundreds.
I don't buy PC's - I build mine from scratch. I don't own any laptops
or netbooks - don't need em.
I have access to binders full of Microsoft software. MSDN, technet,
etc. I have set up hundreds of XP machines at my $DayJob$. I've even
set up something called Multipoint Server 2010 (based on Server 2008
R2).
I run office 2000 Premium SR1. It's nice, because no validation is need
to install (just like no validation needed for win-98). Office 2003?
2007? 2010? I have them all at work. What do most of our work
computers run? Windows 98 with Office 2000. Why? Because if it ain't
broke, you don't f*ck with it.
I know my shit, and what I know is that Microsoft's life blood is to
keep selling you a new OS every 3 years, and they'll do what-ever they
can to beat their old OS's into the ground. If Win-98 was really as bad
as everyone thinks it is, I would leave it in a second, and I have any
number of options at my disposal at no cost to me. I have the CD's and
product keys for ALL versions of windows since windows 95 up to Windows
7.
But I keep using windows 98 for my home computers and my desktop
computer at work. What does that tell you? Does it tell you that I
like to have FULL ACCESS to my own computer? Does it tell you that NTFS
is really a crock of shit compared to FAT32? Does it tell you that I
don't particularly like the idea of WGA? Or that I don't like DRM built
right into the kernel of my OS (as with Vista and 7)? Or a dozen new
system vulnderabilities discovered every month?
Keep drinking the coolaid. Microsoft and it's ecosystem of software and
hardware partners are loving you for it.
Last time I checked, video drivers are considered part of and ship
with the OS,
at least today. The video drivers
I'm using on the PC I'm writing this on were shipped as part of
Windows XP. Upon
installation, the OS installer detects the hardware and installs the
appropriate driver. That's
one of the benefits of XP and more modern OS's. The drivers for
everything the typical
user needs are tested, certified and sold with the OS
As for the quality of computers in 2000, it's rather strange that if
hardware were the problem,
those same computers did not crash when running NT.
>There is a very healthy
Yeah, I'm sure it's a real stable gem and a marvel that should be in
the Smithsonian
for all to admire.
Strange because I used it on several PCs from the time of it's first
release and
I experienced no such disasters. It was an immediate improvement.
Nonsense. The only reason more spam originates from XP, Vista, or
Win 7
systems is because there are so many more of them out there and
consequently
they are the systems targeted. Why would any hacker or virus
developer waste
their time screwing around writing for Win98 in 2006, when it was
basicly extinct?
Tell us what marvel of security software you're using that offers
realtime protection
from viruses and malware on Win98. None of the major security
software vendors even offer
a product that runs on Win98 anymore. Not Norton, not McAfee,
Kaspersky, TrendMicro, none
of them. The best you can find is some shareware that may find the
virus when you manually
run it after the virus is already on your system. None of those
that I'm aware of provide removal either.
You think MAYBE that's because of factors like it just took time for
the worms
and the sophistication of hackers to develop? Any reasonable person
knows
perfectly well that if Win98 was sitting all over the worlds networks
today, it would be MORE
prone to attack by viruses today. That argument is like saying there
were never
any terrorists that used a DC3, so it was a superior airplane to a
767.
LOL. As I said, I used XP for a decade, from the start, with no such
problems.
What you're suggesting, that Win98 is or was more secure than XP, is
laughable.
You think just maybe that could be because those that develop viruses
and
those that try to hack systems evolved over time, became more
prevalent over
time? Consequently they are spending their time to hack into the
systems
that are most widespread and useful to hack with. In other words,
for the last
decade, just like other software developers they haven't given a rat's
behind about Win98.
Yet, you mistake that as a feature of Win98.
Figures you'd follow that strategy. Kind of like the guys I see
bidding up
systems on Ebay. The seller has a two year old PC and states in the
listing over and over that they don't know if it works, sold as is, it
turns
on, but there is no video, no cables, no software, etc. Yet I see
guys
bidding it up to over $200. Over at HP, you can get a brand new
midrange PC with
Win 7 and Microsoft Office, warranty, support, etc for $425. Does that
$200
box sound like a good deal to you?
You couldn't buy the indivdual components on that HP system for
anywhere
near $425. You think you're going to get an AMD Phenom II X4 for
anything
close to what HP buys it for? How about that 1GB drive? Even just
the hardware
components would be more than that. And then, after you do the
integration,
using parts from God knows where, when it doesn't work, you can argue
with
the seller about whether the parts were deffective before or after you
screwed
around with them. I suppose you'd prefer to build your own TV too.
That sounds like the corporate strategy used by GM, Chrysler, and
Lucent Technologies.
Really? Wow, you mean just like every 3 years or so I can get a new
cell
phone that has way more features, better call quality, better
bandwith, internet
access, longer battery life, etc? My what blood suckers, all of them!
Almost everyone knows how inferior it was to the OS's we run today.
I'd say it, together with your constant vulgarity and the fact that
you claim you
would take any new furnace apart to tear out the modern technology
parts before
installing it tells me that you aren't as smart as you think you are
and you have
some serious issues.
Yeah, they get a whole lot of money out of me. Let's see, last $
they got was when I
bought a PC back in 2001 with XP installed on it. That might have
amounted to $50
at most. Then, this year I bought a new HP computer with Win 7 and
Office. Maybe
they got $75 out of that. Big deal. Compare that to your cell
phone bill. Or your cable
bill. Oh wait, let me guess, you don't have those either, right?
Hardware drivers (video, chipset, etc) are written by the manufacturers
of those components. They are made available to Microsoft for
incorporation into the distribution CD's that Windows comes on.
Drivers are updated all the time, especially for video cards, and the
best drivers for most things are almost always obtained from the
manufacturer's website, not from the Windows installation CD.
Now if you're talking laptops or netbooks, that's a slightly different
story, as those hardware components are custom-integrated into the final
product and there may never be driver updates created for those hardware
components. When it comes to desktop PC's, unless you have a "boutique"
computer (HP, Compaq, Dell) then most likely there are better versions
of various hardware drivers available on the net vs the ones that
shipped with the computer originally or that come on the Windows CD.
Windows 98 was plagued by buggy AGP video card drivers and even the AGP
bus itself was still being improved (from an electrical / signalling
POV) back during the time when win-98 was introduced and used (1998 -
2002). Video cards and drivers were significantly better and more
reliable in 2002 than they were in 1998.
Windows 98 was no different. The win-98 CD comes with hundreds of
drivers for all sorts of hardware devices from dozens of manufacturers,
and hundreds if not thousands more win-98 drivers are available on the
web for new devices that didn't exist back in 1998/1999.
It was only during 2006 that drivers for new hardware products stopped
being written for windows 98.
NT did crash. But more to the point - NT systems were usually given the
luxury of more installed RAM. Any OS becomes unstable when given a
small amount of memory, and Win-98 systems at the time were severely
handicapped because they usually had a pathetic 8 to 32 mb of installed
RAM.
Another thing is that when a program crashes under NT, it doesn't take
the OS with it. But Win-9x doesn't have the same separation of OS and
App memory space, so a badly behaving program can crash a win-9x
computer. You might think this is a good thing, but it's largely
irrelavent, because you probably won't be running a badly-behaved App
for very long regardless what OS you use.
XP was extremely well known as being easily exploitable back during 2002
through 2004, and slightly less exploitable in 2005 - 2006. Ask anyone
who was in IT during those years.
You noticed an improvement because XP most likely came installed on a
new computer, and the specs of that new computer were likely much better
than the specs of of the win-98 computer that it replaced.
The years 1998 through 2003 saw a drastic improvement in the capability,
performance, stability and reliability of computer hardware
(motherboard, hard drives, video cards, RAM). You can't compare win-98
with XP without taking that into account.
There were major flaws in XP back in 2002 through 2006 that made them
easy targets for remote access and control by hackers. Those flaws
relate to Microsoft's design goals that XP was first and formost a
business-level operating system and had lots of extra "stuff" (services)
turned on that were completely unnecessary for home users. Windows 98
either did not have those services or they were not turned on by default
as they were with XP, and because of code differences the win-98
versions either did not have any vulnerabilities or if they did, they
were not exploitable in a reliable and consistent way as they were with
XP.
There were plenty of Win-98 computers on the internet during 1998
through 2002, but hardly any of them were exploited because they simply
weren't vulnerable, and many win-98 computers continued to be used into
2003 and 2004. When you read detailed reports and white-papers
regarding trojans and botnets, you find that they were overwhelmingly
composed of XP machines back in 2003 through 2005, even though there
were still a significant number of win-98 machines in use at the time.
Hackers were always looking for vulnerabilities in all OS's in use at
any given time. The truth is that there were hardly any vulnerabilities
in win-98. Ever.
Usually - nothing.
The main AV product that I used on my home and company PC's is/was
Norton AntiVirus 2002 (and note: NAV did not become bloatware until
version 2003 and later). NAV 2002 can still be updated with current
virus scan engine and definition files using Symantec's "intellgent
updater" package - but Symantec doesn't want you to know that.
But I mostly don't bother to update the definitions on the 15 or so
win-98 computers that I own or manage because they quite simply have
never gotten exposed to any malware in the past 7 or so years.
And it's funny when I'm surfing a website and I get the fake-AV popup
that wants me to download some software (which I do just to sample it
and send it to virustotal.com) or maybe some rogue web-page will trigger
my browser to download a malicious pdf file which will cause Acrobat
Reader 6 to start up - and display a harmless error message - because
acrobat reader 6 is not vulnerable to any of the various pdf exploits
that have been discovered in the past few years.
Every once in a while I'll take the hard drive from my win-98 systems
and slave them to an isolated XP system running several different AV
software and scan the drives for malware. NONE is ever found.
From an IT management point of view, it has been an absolute pleasure to
own and operate about a dozen windows-98 systems in a corporate / small
business environment for the past 10 years. From payroll to accounting
to production to manufacturing to networking, win-98 works well in those
rolls with the software we have, and I spend zero time having to worry
or deal with security or malware from the internet. It's also been a
very cost-effective solution not "upgrading" to what-ever Microsoft says
is the required OS to use. Anyone dancing to Microsoft's tune is indeed
a fool.
After certification and approval by Microsoft to ensure that they work
with
the OS. Ifa the drivers for the common video chips included in WinXP,
7, etc
doesn't work, won't install, etc, you call Microsoft. With Win98 you
have
old drivers and God knows who you call today. I doubt anyone is
writing
Win98 drivers for new hardware today.
And most people, like me, are using the standard ones. I have a four
monitor Appian graphics card running on XP. Not even your typical
video card. The standared XP install recognized it, installed the
driver
and it works perfectly.
There isn't anything special about notebook computers. The hardware
components
that drive the I/O, eg video/graphics chips are integrated into chips
on the motherboard. The
exact same thing is done with the computers you buy at any of the
desktop
manufacturers. They usually have basic video/graphics integrated on
the motherboard
because most of the chipsets sold by Intel, AMD have those built-in
and it gives them
a cost effective way of offering video/graphics. If you want to, you
can choose to disable
those and use an add-in card for higher performance. Same thing
with disk. The disk interface has
been part of the desktop motherboard for a decade, because it too is
intergrated into those
chipsets, just like for notebooks.
You're stuck in Win98 world. Today those common, mainstream PCs come
with drivers that are perfectly fine, stable and only a small minority
of people
are seeking out drivers different than what comes with the PC. That
mode
exists primarily with geeks and gamers, who want to screw around with
things
and try to get some better performance. I don;t know who would
consider HP
or Dell a boutique company. I can get a mid-range PC with 6GB RAM,
650MB
disk, Win 7, MSFT Office, Norton Internet Security, etc from HP for
$425 including
shipping. What makes that "boutique". BTW, Compaq hasn't existed
for years.
It was bought by HP.
Uh huh. And those better drivers are shipped by Microsoft as part of
XP and later
OS's. Consequently, those OS's are more likely to install and work
without blue
screens of death. I think most people would say that makes XP a
better OS.
Win98 was different. You just said:
"Windows 98 was plagued by buggy AGP video card drivers " Today Win7
ship with drivers that are stable and not buggy.
Oh my God. You can't seriously belive this. WinXP and subsequent
OSs
took full advantage of the hardware protection built into the Intel
architecture. There
is physical hardware present specifically to prevent one app from
crashing another
ap or the OS. For example, using that hardware, the OS limits the
memory space
application A can reach. It can try to do a direct memory write to
another memory
region, eg one used by the OS, and the HARDWARE blocks it and triggers
an
exception. It's precisely those kinds of improvements that are in XP
and later
OS's that make them stable. Win98 was a kludge from the days of the
original
8088 based PC, with the OS being a legacy 16 bit implentation with
some 32 bit
capability added on. Consequently it made minimal use of the features
of the hardware
that provided memory management and protection. With XP, the home had
a true 32 bit
OS that fitted perfectly with the memory management and protection
hardware of the
Intel architecture.
With Win98 I regularly had one bad behaving app lock up the whole
system. With
XP and later, that's been reduced dramatically. It still does happen
once in a while.
I think most people share that experience.
And Win98 besides being an unstable piece of crap, had all those
security
vulnerabilities and more. Just because more viruses and malware have
evolved
over time doesn't mean that earlier OS's were better. Following that
logic, we
should all still be using MS-DOS because the original IBM PC had no
viruses,
at least for a while.
Wrong. You can take Win98 and run it on a brand new computer today and
it
would have the same problems because it's a kludge 16bit/32 bit
patched together
OS. But that ain;t very likely to happen, because no one is writing
drivers for it
today. You want to stay stuck in time 5+ years ago forever?
Been, there, done that. What I've seen is a constant improvement
over time in
both hardware and software. One of those was kissing Win98 goodbye.
Hopefully that's because that system is not connected to the internet.
More likely it's because no security software is available to offer
real-
time protection for Win98.
That must mean that you don;t have it connected to the internet,
otherwise
they would clearly be exposed. But being an antique, there are less
viruses to worry
about because just like with apps, no one is writing new ones. But
I'd bet someone
is occasionally recirculating old ones.
I'm sure trying to use Win98 on the web today you get all sorts of
error messages.
That's a real convenient process and finds them only after they've
infected the
system.
Yeah, like I said, that evil corporation called Microsoft has really
scammed me.
They got maybe $50 from me in 2001 when I bought a PC with XP. And
recently
they got a similar amount or maybe $75when I bought a new PC that has
Win 7
and Microsoft Office on it. During that decade I got free updates.
They really
took advantage of me. All those developers that stopped writing
anything for
Win98 6 or more years ago must be fools too.
Clearly you're one of the Microsoft hating loons, so biased you can't
see the forest
for the trees.
.
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