Help deciding on new gas furnace and A/C
anontemp123
8 years ago
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tigerdunes
8 years agomike_home
8 years agoRelated Discussions
can I buy a new gas furnace separate from an a/c unit
Comments (1)Wouldn't you have to run ductwork, gas line and electric from this new furnace to the chimney? Seems like an expensive proposition for a temporary fix. Have you gotten another opinion as to the need to replace your existing furnace....See MoreReplacing A/C and gas furnace - Fredericksburg, VA
Comments (1)You may have better comfort and dehumidification with the 2 stage Performance 17. How will your return air be filtered? You have adequate returns on main and second floor? Your current furnace is 80 K 80% efficiency? Generally, you will get better dehumidification with a furnace that has a variable speed blower. While your furnace selection is two stage, high efficient with high eff blower, it is not var speed. Just so you know. IMO...See MoreCan I go from a split unit to a package Gas Furnace with A/C?
Comments (0)Hi, I currently have a 20 year old York Furnace Model P3U5DIZN08001A/ECTM061628 and it's about had it. I got quotes from several contractors in the area who quoted prices on a new unit ranging from $4K all the way up to $15K. I found a listing on my local craigslist for a 3 year old NorDyne package Gas Furnace with Air Conditioner model GR4GA-042K096C for $750 in perfect working order. Both are 3.5 tons - will the NorDyne work in my house? Thanks for your help! Here is a link that might be useful: NorDyne Spec Sheet...See MoreHelp new A/C, coil, & Furnace price quoted
Comments (12)I'm in the LA area too and I've been trying to replace my broken down 3.5 ton condenser. Unfortunately, I've been stuck doing too much research (analysis paralysis), but I've learned a lot. My house is 1430 sqft, long wall faces east and gets the hot afternoon sun, I'm on a raised foundation with crawl space, insulation R25 in attic, hardwood floors, no insulation in walls, double pane windows, built in 1952, 3 bd, 2 ba, etc. You need to get someone to do a load calculation (Manual J) which takes into account your insulation in the attic, insulation in the walls, insulation in the crawl space, sqft of windows facing east/west/south/north, sqft walls facing east/west, sqft of doors, type of floor, volume of your house, sqft of house, temperatures that you want to set inside the house in winter/summer, climate in your area, number of people in house, number of appliances, etc. All these factors determine your cooling needs in the summer and your heating needs in the winter. Or you can learn how to do this yourself at http://loadcalc.net I would guesstimate that no insulation in the attic, no insulation on the walls, no insulation under the floor, and drafty old windows probably raises your cooling needs to close to 5-tons. A 5-ton condenser and matching furnace are a lot more expensive to run/operate than a 3-ton system. I ran the numbers on my house and my cooling needs were a little over 4 tons without attic insulation and without wall insulation. I have R25 in the attic and I'm adding R15 wall insulation as I type this message and my cooling needs went down to a little under 3 tons (at 35.5k BTUs). So, my wall and attic insulation reduced my cooling needs by 1-ton (a little over 12k BTUs). I think the attic insulation makes more of a difference than the the wall insulation, so I recommend that you get that done asap. It really helps. Now, getting back to equipment. I've been following the advice on this forum not to get low end equipment. This advice has taken me in a two month quest for a reasonably priced mid-level equipment from a good company (Trane, American Standard, Rheem), but I'm having trouble finding it. The best quotes I've gotten are for Amana and Lennox. The most expensive are for Trane, AS, and Rheem. Goodman is very popular probably because of the price. They have good warranty, but the equipment is not well regarded in this forum. Almost everyone says it's better to get a great installer with low end equipment than high-end reliable equipment with a bad installer. I think I met two really bad installers and two good installers. It's a feeling, but it's hard to know for sure. Some dealers send their salesperson to talk to you, so you never meet the installer. One way to protect yourself is to get a permit. In my area, this ensures that the refrigerant level is checked to make sure it's appropriate for your system. That's all the permit does in my city. Another way to protect yourself is to qualify for rebates. The rebates from So Cal Edison require an outside inspector to inspect/test your ducts and install. The problem with rebates is that it costs more money to pay for these tests and the installers/dealers build in a markup when you try to get rebates. I got quotes with rebates from Lennox and Rheem and both were in the $9500 range with the possibility to get about $2700 in rebates. It's scary trying to qualify for the rebates because you might have to pay additional fees in repairs in order to meet the requirements of the rebates. Now that I've written a book on this topic, my advice to you is to get a load calculation done and see what your heating and cooling needs are. Figure out if it's worth getting the attic insulation to cut down on equipment size. Remember that it's more expensive to run a 5-ton system than a 3-ton system of equal SEER. Oversized equipment might cause your system to short-cycle which may be bad for the equipment. In So Cal, we really need the a/c and not the heater so much. So, matching a 5-ton a/c condenser with the right 5-ton 2000 CFM blower in a furnace will result in an oversized furnace. Your heating needs are probably 3-tons 36K BTUs without insulation, but you are putting a 100K BTU furnace in order to get the matching blower in the furnace to blow the cooling air at the right speed. Also, 3-ton equipment is cheaper than 5-ton equipment. So, the savings in equipment price and the operational savings can probably pay for your attic insulation. I'm paying $1600 to insulate all my outside walls. I insulated my attic myself using encapsulated batts from Home Depot. I might have to pay a little extra fill in some of the attic areas that I didn't do such a great job on. I'm talking to the wall insulators about doing this extra work for a small fee. I want them to blow some loose cellulose into those areas that need it. Okay, you might not have finished reading all this, but see my other posts on price and equipment. I researched 3-ton systems....See Moretigerdunes
8 years agomike_home
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