OK… Wifie “won” a free furnace cleaning and inspection. As expected, It is broke. Not broke like they were trying to sell her something, but broke like there is a crack in the heat exchanger.
I’m a cheap bastard and I like to DIY my way into breaking expensive things. How bad is it to replace a furnace?
My uneducated perspective is that aside from labor, there is some work to be done in tweaking it to run as efficiently as possible.
For the moment, I’m looking for a non central air replacement as I have a budget of about $0.
Depends on the size that you need. I think Nikuk did a writeup on some estimates he got about a year or two ago. I would guess the prices would stay about the same. I replaced both of mine (duplex) for $5K and got a rebate of $300 each for getting a high efficiency unit installed.
You’ll probably looking anywhere between 2-3K for the furnace including install.
Pretty sure they’re put in the middle because that’s where they work best. You know, not trying to transport that hot air/water the entire length of the house.
As for replacing it yourself I think you’re in over your head. Hot water heater myself sure. Furnace, only if I had someone who had installed them before helping me.
Pretty strait forward, gas, electric and duct work. Depending if you get a 2 stage blower wiring can be a bit more tricky but not hard. Don’t forget about the t-stat, probably have to run new wire for that also.
Without doing the A/C it should be straight forward with the exception of fine tuning.
Plumbing while a PITA is not overly complicated. Sheet metal work would also be a PITA to be sure, but its not rocket surgery.
I’m also not saying that I will do it, but I need to know how much and what kind of work will actually be done.
If you saw the plumbing for my furnace, you would hate its location too. I love all the 4" lines
Edit: My pops bought a good high eff. furnace last fall…
It has been serviced twice, and in the middle of winter it was 52 degrees in his house…
That also makes me bitter… especially since his furnace was working great until the 6 month “free tune up/inspection/cleaning”
It is pretty difficult to acquire a decent new furnace without getting it installed. Installing it it shouldn’t be too bad (especially if you get an non-high efficiency unit - something like this http://www.alpinehomeair.com/viewcategory.cfm?categoryID=280) - just some sheetmetal work to adapt to your existing ducting and chimney. High efficiency is trickier.
Not sure about he legality of DIY-ing gas lines in NYS.
I would honestly have someone come out and check it again. Unless you physically saw the crack in the heat exchanger. They may have been just looking to make some money.
Also if your going to get a new furnace installed get A/C installed. You will thank you self.
The difficulties with high efficiency would be more plumbing, am I right?
Maybe some condensate capture too.
I think I’m going to grab a CO monitor and see how much is really present.
If the heat exchanger is essentially under pressure, and the burners are doing a good job
getting most of the CO into CO2 It should not be a Huge CO leak that will kill everyone on my street. (Note: never discuss furnace/heat exchanger problems with PhD chemical engineers)
That and punching a hole to the outside of the house for the intake/exhaust, which coincidentally also sensitive to things like run length and number of bends, CO is not water - so getting a good seal on the PVC is improtant…
Condensate is not difficult - just run a drain line (might need a ~$40 pump to move it)
Sheet metal work is the challenging part IMHO. Also I doubt you will get any sort of warranty on the DIY installed equipment.
It’s not going to blow up or kill anyone with fumes. I bet 50% of homes have furnaces with cracked heat exchangers. If you don’t have the money right now, don’t worry about it. And paulysplitx is right. The local HVAC union put this shit together because their wallets are hurting right now. You don’t need a new furnace.
