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curlydoglover
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
NPCER: Has anyone ever replaced their furnace or a/c?
I'm going to post and run but, basically, we're replacing both. Our a/c is dead, so that's a gimmie. Our furnace is 18 years old and the secondary heat exchanger has cracks in it (hello carbon monoxide poisoning risk).
We've had 3 of 4 companies come and give us a quote. They're all about in the same ballpark, so it's really coming down to the choice of brand and/or company.
The brands we've been quoted on are:
Carrier - Infinity and Performance series
AirEase
Amana - Distinctions series
Ruud
We have one more company coming tonight and they look to be a Lennox dealer.
Anyone have any opinions on those 5? Also, where should I crosspost? D&R? Buying a Home?
Re: NPCER: Has anyone ever replaced their furnace or a/c?
we replaced everything 2 years ago. i THINK it was Amana.
ETA: Nope, Bryant. the whole shebang cost us about 6k for a 2400 sqft house, 2 stories. our bills have been about 20% lower.
If you want to give me more specifics, I can send the info to MH.
He currently works in researching energy efficiency in HVAC, but used to design furnaces and a/cs for Carrier. At our old house, he replaced everything with Carrier stuff b/c at the time he worked there and got a huge discount. He probably knows the most about Carrier, but at his current job, they are using several different brands in test houses and have been for a few years.
If you give me details about your house, weather, etc., he can probably recommend the best type of system too (for what would be cheapest/most efficient to use each month). Like, when we lived in Indy we had a system that would run on electric until it got below x degrees b/c it was more efficient to use that until it was a certain temp, then it switched to gas.
ETA: he's a mechanical engineer, and has his masters in mechanical engineering w/ a focus on the topics that he deals with in HVAC equipment and systems (I have no idea what those classes are and there's a more formal name for the topics, but yeah... I don't pay that close of attention. I'm sure I sound like a dummy right now and MH will laugh when I show him this post).
We replaced our furnace when I was pg. We got a Lenox. We have a small house, so it was the only non-huge version of a furnace that wasn't too expensive. They also have a washable/wipeable version of their air filter (that we have yet to buy cuz we're lazy) for about $70 which is GREAT for us since it sits on the main floor and we have 2 long haired cats.
Ooh. That would be awesome.
We're in SE WI, so lots of cold and usually snow for the majority of the year (e.g. we still have our heat on cause it's still getting into the 30s at night). Obviously we use the furnace the most. It's a gas furnace. Forced air system.
We rarely use the a/c. We're close enough to Lake Michigan that we stay a bit cooler than the rest of the area and we get a decent breeze. Our thermostat (programmable. Honeywell) is set to 80 in the summer (83 when we're not home and maybe 76 or 77 at night). We make good use of cross-breezes and ceiling fans.
House is approximately 2000 sq. ft, not including the finished basement (adds about another 500 sq. ft.). It's 2 story. We don't have any issues with temperature differential between the 1st and 2nd floor - everything stays pretty consistent.
We have a whole house humidifier on the furnace (aprilaire). It works really well at keeping the house not as dry in the winter.
ETA: OH! The current a/c is a 3 ton, 10 SEER unit. We had one contractor suggest going to a 2.5 ton unit, but when we asked two other contractors about that they said it was a bad idea. Most are recommending a 3 ton, 13 SEER unit as the ROI of going to a 15 or 16 SEER is something like 5 or 6 years assuming 600 cooling hours per year (and we never reach 600 cooling hours per year).
The current furnace is 80,000 BTU. One contractor did some calculation based on the gas we actually used in the coldest month in the last three years (pulled from our actual energy bill) to see if it was sized correctly. I can't remember the actual number he said our furnace used (discounting other gas appliances in the house) but he said a 70,000 BTU unit would more than suffice. I think it was something around 48,000 or 49,000?
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We just replaced our a/c with an Amana. Our house is about 1300 sq ft and we live in FL, so we use the air a lot.
Our electric bills have been half of what they used to be.