Looking for opinions on new furnace

[cral12]

We have a 23 yo Lennox; had a technician look at it this AM and seems thorough. $2000 to repair it; recommending a new furnace. Rather now then mid-winter at least.

[Twitchy15]

Originally Posted by cral12

old thread bump - any recent new furnace purchase experiences and recommendations?

I got a new furnace and AC in Aug 2023 and trying to remember maybe 2021 around at old place.

Used chestermere heating and cooling both times and they were fantastic. I can answer any questions you might have. I recommended them to my parents and co-worker and they also had good experiences.

first place got 2 stage furnace and simple 13 seer ac both worked great. new to me place got same furnace and carrier midea rebrand heat pump. + humidifiers both times

[Nufy]

Control board went on my 14 year old furnace last december...

1000 to replace plus labor.

4K for a new one.

Went with the new one.

[Huntingwhale]

Originally Posted by Nufy

Control board went on my 14 year old furnace last december...

1000 to replace plus labor.

4K for a new one.

Went with the new one.

Was the same with mine last year, although I went with the repair route. It died in November last year and we got someone from Arpis Furnace to come out and replace the ignition kit. Dude said he did a full analysis afterwards and found no other issues. Not even 2 weeks later, the furnace died again. This time, the control board needed replacing.

All in all was about $1400 to fix. Haven't had any issues since. Furnace is about 12 years old.

[DoubleF]

I think Everlast said Chestermere plumbing and heating went back to and merged with Fagnan's plumbing and heating. I also went with them, but the timing didn't work out exactly. I went with someone else and it's been OK, but I kinda wished I waited and made the effort to go with Chestermere. Kyle wanted to go with the better approach, the dudes I went with did the more effective approach. In hindsight, even though my current system works relatively fine, Chestermere's approach would have been more streamlined and more visually appealing + more future proof in doing it the more complex way, but having everything on the same side of the house vs having stuff on different sides of the house. IMO, in hind sight, it's not worth the few grand in savings. I'll probably be dropping a wad of cash to getting it sorted out and making it nicer in about 5-8 years so I'm not tripping all over it or having the sounds I can hear around the house. I wouldn't have needed to do that if I didn't try to save a few Gs up front (to be fair, tight cash flow and restricted schedule at the time).

IMO, if you do any utility room work, if there's anything that is a few years out from needing to be addressed, consider doing it all at once (ie: Water heater, water softener, AC etc.).

IIRC, Everlast also said that there's a new type of AC coil that's amazing. If your AC coil is older, it might be worth asking if it's possible to swap it to the new style coil while everything is opened up, the team is on site and everything is a mess anyways.

Also, I think I recall Everlast said that the newer Ecobee smart thermostats have the ability to share diagnostic data. He said he knows someone who showed him that if the data was shared with him, basically he knows when and how a system went down, so that he can pre-prep his team before you even call and/or use the diagnostic data to suggest certain work before the system goes down at an inopportune time.

Smart thermostat wise, if you don't have a 4+ wire bundle at each thermostat, make sure to request it so your thermostats have the wire bundles and are hard wired/future proofed. Those C-wire adapter kits suck balls and occasionally take a while to respond if the house gets cold. Waste of money and I think it cost me like $300. I wish I could have paid incrementally more to get it done right.

Lastly, when I spoke with Everlast, he mentioned that HE furnaces unlike <medium efficiency furnaces are supposed to have the fans on on all the time to avoid damage to the fans. I'll be getting him to see if there's any issue with the fans in a little bit. I don't know if it's related but he said that there's ways where new furnaces can suddenly die if not maintained in a certain way. Heat gets trapped and melts down the control boards on brand new furnaces and stuff or something?

This might be something to be aware of and you may want to look into solutions earlier if you someone in the household who is sensitive to sounds of the fans at night time if fans will always be on vs on and off.

[Twitchy15]

Yeah both times I upgraded needed to update the wiring and got a ecobee thermostat which was great compared to nest.

First time I got 5 different quotes and Kyle just stood out like crazy super nice guy and had great ideas for the job and it went really smoothly.

Our current house they were crazy busy during the summer they had recommended the greener homes grant which was great got a slimmer unit higher seer rating and heats the house as well for cheaper then a bigger, less efficient AC unit with government rebate.

since that time they have combined with his dads company, but overall they have been great. Our heat pump was struggling in the summer to cool the house and they came and trouble shooted multiple times and in the end installed a larger unit at no charge. No fighting with them just doing the right thing so can't say enough good things about them!

if only the roofers I hired were a similar company ...

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Huntingwhale

Was the same with mine last year, although I went with the repair route. It died in November last year and we got someone from Arpis Furnace to come out and replace the ignition kit. Dude said he did a full analysis afterwards and found no other issues. Not even 2 weeks later, the furnace died again. This time, the control board needed replacing.

All in all was about $1400 to fix. Haven't had any issues since. Furnace is about 12 years old.

Was it a Trane furnace?

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Nufy

Control board went on my 14 year old furnace last december...

1000 to replace plus labor.

4K for a new one.

Went with the new one.

It's only 4k for a new one?

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

It's only 4k for a new one?

Sounds about right, but maybe closer to $5K than $4K even? A few years ago I paid approx $13K for dual furnaces, hot water tank, dual humidifiers and 2 pairs of C line adapters. Somewhere in there is labour, redoing ductwork/intake/exhaust and disposal of the old units.

$5K each for two furnaces leaves $3K for hot water tank, humidifiers, c line adapters and redoing ductwork. $3K seems a little light for all of that work.

[cral12]

Prices apparently going up 25% come January due to tariff effect.

[BagoPucks]

Are there any Canadian built furnaces out there? Freezing cold ass country but we don't want to build furnaces? Sorry to hijack this thread for my rant.

[Fuzz]

Napoleon. I just looked to check their stock price, but they are privately owned.


Continental is another one, though they look to just be rebaged Napoleon's.