New furnace
by
Kewe
i am looking to replace my old oil furnace with a new propane furnace. any recommendations for services in the new haven county of fairfield county of CT?
1 answer
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You can do a contractor search at the top of the page for those that are listed in your area. I will chime in however on your fuel of choice and some pointers when picking out a new furnace. By furnace I am assuming your looking for a forced warm air unit? If its a boiler that heats water or makes steam, leave the oil in place. It is hotter and much more efficient at heating liquids. With a forced warm air unit you have basically two choices regardless of brands. You have an. 80% and 90% which is commonly called a condensing furnace. The 80% units typically are around 85% efficient with numbers varying depending upon the manufacture of the unit. These furnaces utilize your existing chimney and are pretty simple in operation overall. The issue you may have however is the chimney going from oil to gas. When converting the contractor must determine the condition of the existing furnace. Many older oil heated homes had chimneys that were not lined to accept gas heat. Regardless if its propane or natural. If that is the case, you will need to add around $1,000 plus or minus for a new liner. Prices of these are dependent upon you using aluminum or stainless and how long it needs to be as well as how steep the roof is for the contractor to work on. In any case this may be a number that will make the heating system cost become to much to do. A work around this as most folks think is the 90% or condensing furnace. These units range anywhere from around 92% up to 98% or better on combustion efficiency. They do so well that they do not use metal for the flue pipe or chimney at all. They use PVC plastic pipes for the chimney. This allows the contractor to vent out the side of the house assuming there are no windows or doors to close by that could cause the flue gasses from coming back in if one was left open. In any case these furnaces do not require the use of the existing chimney so you do not need to line for them. So not needing a liner for the new furnace will save you some money on the liner is lost at the additional cost for the higher quality furnace. So its pretty much a wash there. But that is not where the cost stops. When using a condensing furnace or 90% unit your older heating system is removed from the current chimney. This then leaves the hot water heater alone or orphaned as they say in the chimney. The issue is here is that the chimney is sized for proper drafting when both the heating and hot water heater is combined. Once you remove the primary heating source in the chimney the only thing left is a hot water heater that requires a much smaller chimney liner to properly vent. Now that there Is no additional heat going up the chimney, the flue gasses for the hot water heater may not be hot enough to vent properly, often requiring the need for a smaller chimney liner to be installed. While the cost of this liner is less material wise for it as compared to both the furnace and hot water heater, the labor is still required. So you see you may still need to line it. Many times the heating pro will not inform you that this may become an issue. sometimes it does not, and sometimes it does. But you need to be prepared to have it lined if your hot water heater fails to properly draft when you convert to the high efficiency furnace. The work around that is to have a on demand hot water heater installed that also vents out the side of the house. These units can add an additional cost somewhere in the area of $3000 or more depending upon many factors including brands and size requirements. Do not be fooled into thinking that the on demand unit they sell at the local big box store is the cost. Once combined with all the necessary components needed to correctly install the price triples as least from what they advertise.
Woodbridge Environmental Tiptophouse.com
on Apr 02, 2014
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