This is a gas-fired, downflow forced-air furnace situation. House was built in 1957. Furnace is in a centrally located hall closet with louvered bi-fold doors. My issue is noise. The original Rheem, with the big long cast iron burners made barely a sigh when the burners came on. More noise, of course, when the blower kicked in. In the 80's, it was replaced with a new higher efficiency model. It's a Bryant. Spark ignition w/pilot, inducer blower, that sort of thing. The burners are like 4 blow torches. That whole setup is so noisy that you barely even notice the uptick in noise when the blower comes on. It's time for replacing it. The inducer bearings are going bad (I replaced the inducer maybe 10 years ago). I had to replace the heat switch by the pilot earlier in the year. Seems like it's constantly needing something. Anyway, I'm looking for a replacement. Looking for recommendations for a brand or general type that would be quieter since this is located right in the middle of living space. I am not necessarily looking at super high efficiency but might pony up for it if they are inherently quieter. A salesman said a variable speed type might be quieter but I think that's only going to affect the blower noise and even with the blower off my present machine is too loud. But that's 80's technology so I don't know how loud or not loud even a regular modern furnace is. PS: It's 90,000 BTU/H input. I realize greater efficiency would allow downsizing that but I'm concerned about going too small if I keep the same A/C since that's gonna need a certain air flow volume. Have not decided whether to do both but that's another issue entirely. I don't want weak cooling because of undersized air handling capacity of a new, smaller furnace and have them say I "told you so" regarding how I should have replaced both).

I put in a York, in my own trailer. Back in 2004, maybe. Can't remember for sure. Anyhow, it's down flow, and reasonably quiet. I can hear it if I'm standing right next to it. Mine is a 90 percenter, PVC vent.

Would Like a Quieter Furnace

Nov 07, 2014 23 Replies

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trader_4 11 years ago

It would be one hell of a fractional HP motor that generated anywhere that much heat. It's typically only 1/3 hp, maybe 1/2. I replaced a

27 year old furnace and the gas bill decreased dramatically. Didn't notice any difference in the electric bill and that's with a variable speed ECM blower.

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Tony Hwang 11 years ago

Hi, DC motor is always more efficient. Even my GDO has 140V DC motor, small in size but pretty powerful.

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trader_4 11 years ago

Yes, I agree and I didn't mean to imply that it isn't. It's just that with my usage I can't show a difference on the electric bill. With the gas bill, there was a huge, like 40% difference. Of course I don't leave my blower running 24/7 like Clare either.

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micky 11 years ago

Yeah, come to think of it, in his case you're probably right. When I care about the noise, I'm two flights up and all I hear is the fan, so I thought of that first. The color showed it was on the slowest speed, but I tried the other two wires, just in case they'd made a mistake. They hadn't. So I sometimes shut the bedroom door to cut out the noise.

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