Furnaces and bills and bears "oh my"

[Wookie]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Cause my bills are covered by the condo fees.

I know, I was kidding lol.

[SeeGeeWhy]

How much are the on demand water heaters?

And how much does it cost to replace a furnace? Ours belongs in a museum, probably takes up ~200 cubic feet, and don't get me started about the HUGE ducts that it uses... our friggen basement is a shrine to old school home heating because of that damn thing.

I have the same issue with my hot water tank. I think the tube inside is broken or very scaled up... hot water in the showers doesn't last very long at all.

How about water softening systems? Do those improve the life of a hot water tank as well as making your skin supple and smoove?

Last thing - has anyone ever put in a 100A service panel into their electrical system? I've got a 70A and, although it works fine, we had a hard time insuring our house. If its cheap, maybe we should just bite the bullet on that too.

[FurnaceFace]

Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy

How much are the on demand water heaters?

They aren't cheap. Going from memory I'd say the water system was 5k+. We bought top of the line, Rinnai are number one. Bosch doesn't have a good rep from what I've read.

[ken0042]

One of the issues I have heard with on demand hot water in Calgary is you need a system that is designed to handle our very cold tap water. So a system that would work in Toronto might be too weak to handle our water.

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by prarieboy

If nothing else get inspected. My friends furnace of a similar age failed and started pumping Carbon Monoxide into the house while they slept.
A really bad scene, nearly killed the whole family. Luckily one of the kids got up and woke up the parents when he fell to the floor unconcious.

How did that happen?

Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy

Last thing - has anyone ever put in a 100A service panel into their electrical system? I've got a 70A and, although it works fine, we had a hard time insuring our house. If its cheap, maybe we should just bite the bullet on that too.

Not positive but i think it is 100 amp = $1,000 install, roughly.
you'd probably get 125 amp, which I think is roughly $1,250


For people who have recenlty installed HE furnaces...
how much $$$ ?
and did the eliminate your furnace exhaust lines, and put in a new one?

[FurnaceFace]

Originally Posted by ken0042

One of the issues I have heard with on demand hot water in Calgary is you need a system that is designed to handle our very cold tap water. So a system that would work in Toronto might be too weak to handle our water.

Here's what we had to do:
- Call Atco, tell them to check out meter and replace it with one which allows for enough BTU throughput. I believe our original meter was limited to something like 200k BTUs and the new one is 300k BTUs (or similar amount).
- The company putting in the heater has to run the gas to the heater first, this ensures it gets the required amount of gas when all 6 burners kick in.
- When I talked to Atco the guy made some comment Calgary has a 7 or 8 inch water column instead of other cities that have a 10 inch column which is part of the problem. Kind of when over my head but that's what they told me.
- We got the new system installed in June and I've had endless amounts of glorious hot water even when it's -30.

- One thing our installer recommended was to keep the old water tank connected to the water supply - but disconnected from the gas. The reason for this is two fold: 1) his reasoning is the tank will hold the water and the ambient house tempature will raise the temp of the water by a few degrees. Hence, the heater won't have to fire off as many burners to heat the water and 2) if there is ever a problem with the on demand heater he can simply hook up the gas line to the old water tank, and take the on demand system back to the shop or something. Not a bad contingency plan.

Originally Posted by DuffMan

For people who have recenlty installed HE furnaces...
how much $$$ ?
and did the eliminate your furnace exhaust lines, and put in a new one?

We got the on demand heater, HE furnace, electronic air cleaner, and humidifier for something around $12k. I think the furnace was 4k of that.

The exhaust now runs out the side of your house. There is an intake and an exhaust.