High- or mid-efficiency furnances

[MoneyGuy]

I just installed one. This sucker takes forever to heat up my house. No kidding. Come home from the office and it takes three hours to heat the house from 17 where it is set during the day to 21 degrees. I hate to see what it's like when the temp is minus 30. It'll never get the temp up to 21. Does anyone have one these furnaces and how long does it take for yours to heat up your house? My installer says that it heats more efficiently but it does take longer.

??????

[I-Hate-Hulse]

That doesn't sound right. I've got a Carrier (Performance 80???) and it heats up the house pretty quick (15-20 minutes) when it goes from 16.5 to 22.5. The digital thermostat I put in has some feature where it clocks how long it takes to get warm, and turns on earlier to hit the required temperature by the scheduled time.

[Mr. Ski]

We changed from a 'very' low efficiency 1970's furnace to a Trane XV90 93% eff. one about two months ago. Link: http://www.trane.com/residential/pro...aces/xv90.aspx

In our case it works much faster than before. It's their top end dual burner, constantly variable speed fan model and can really pump out the heat when it needs to. Could be that it's simply relative to our previous one. My only complaint is that it's a little bit louder when running full bore.

Edit: Spelling

[GoinAllTheWay]

That really suprises me to hear that. My main envy of the houses owned by various friends is their furnace is waaaaaaaaay newer than mine. I live in a house built around the time where gas was cheap as hell so there is certainly nothing efficient about it. When it fires up, it's pretty quiet and the air comes out at a reasonalbe rate I suppose but when I go over to a buddies house who has one of the new high effciency furnace, the air is ROCKETING out of the vents so hard that it is almost blowing the vents out of the floor, air is really warm too. I would LOVE to have a new furnace but my God those things are pricy. Yes, I know it will pay for itself over the long run but I don't plan on being in my current house long enough for that to happen.

Perhaps you got a bad one? A new furnace should not take that long to heat your house.

While we are on the subject, anyone ever had their vents & ducts cleaned? Seems like some vents in the house have air coming out at a good rate while others it kinda trickles out, can't imagine what could possibly get into a vent to block it but is it a worth while endevour?

[Knut]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

I just installed one. This sucker takes forever to heat up my house. No kidding. Come home from the office and it takes three hours to heat the house from 17 where it is set during the day to 21 degrees. I hate to see what it's like when the temp is minus 30. It'll never get the temp up to 21. Does anyone have one these furnaces and how long does it take for yours to heat up your house? My installer says that it heats more efficiently but it does take longer.

??????

Check the airflow through the vents.... are they all open? Could be that the heat is just not getting to all the places in the house.. I would also compare the size of the unit to the square footage of your home and go to an independant dealer/repair service...call up ARPI's or something and tell them the model number and the square footage of the house.... it may be that the furnace itself is not build for the size of your house...

[Cheese]

I just installed a version very similar to Mr Skis and I am much impressed! It heats the house much faster, is quieter and has less maintenance involved overall. That from an 80,000BTU unit vs the old 125,000BTU unit that came with the house.
I wonder if yours was sized correctly as far as the amount of BTUs required for your home...either that or they didnt make a proper duct connection...or as stated above your vents are closed.

[Textcritic]

Question:
I just purchased a house (we intend to move in in February), which is much larger than anything I am used to. The thought has crossed my mind about installing a high-efficiency furnace.
• How much can I expect to spend on a new furnace for a 4,200 square-foot home?
• How much can I expect to save from a high efficiency furnace?

[Cheese]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Question:
I just purchased a house (we intend to move in in February), which is much larger than anything I am used to. The thought has crossed my mind about installing a high-efficiency furnace.
• How much can I expect to spend on a new furnace for a 4,200 square-foot home?
• How much can I expect to save from a high efficiency furnace?

I think to get your answers text all you need to do is get a few salesmen into the home for quotes.
Tough to say what you will save if you dont know what the present owners pay...

Heres an excel spreadsheet that helps, but based on American Energy Star requirements.
Energy Star

BTW from my learnings Lennox is NOT the best units out there and are actually no better than mid range. Trane makes great models. But wtf you will have warranties anyways. Make sure whatever you do to get all electronics covered under warranty as well.

Reviews

http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/equipment/eng...e34.cfm?attr=4

Also...dont get pulled into the two speed motor purchase either...you likely dontneed it.

Your cost installed should be in the $3 - 4,000 range all inclusive.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by fotze

Textcritic, you just bought a 4200 square foot home. Wholly crap, what do you do for a living?

It's not what you think. I had alot of equity built into my present home, and the new house has a very large basement suite which will function to greatly off-set my mortgage payments.

[Textcritic]

That was helpful.
Thanks, Cheese.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

and the new house has a very large basement suite which will function to greatly off-set my mortgage payments.

Translation: Grow op!

Naw, just teasing.

Good on you; I looked into doing that as well; buying a place with a rentable basement suite.

As far as furnaces go; mine's an 80% furnace, and my previous place had whatever you'd find in a 1978 house. New one is way better at heating the house. Old furnace took almost an hour to move the temp from 18 to 21, now the new one takes about 1/2 the time to go from 17 to 20. (And yes I'm becoming a tight wad in my old age.)

[return to the red]

dealing with heating guys who come in and buy the pipe fittings for the hi-efficiency furnaces all the time they have said that you can have the biggest and best furnace in the world but if your house doesn't have properly located cold air returns and the ducts aren't "ran correctly" your house will always be cold.

It is a misconception that Lennox is the best name out there as well. We are building a house and went with a Carrier 92.5% efficient furnace