Any HVAC folk on here?

[idnative1948]

Or others who have had a new gas furnace installed in the last couple of years? Spent time with our furnace guy under the house (damn thing is in the crawl space) today looking at cracks in the heat exchanger. Common sense would tell me that a 17-year old furnace with those issues it would be time for new vs repair? Brands of choice?

 

[rlmmatt]

I just installed 12 Goodmans in my apartments they have electronic ignition instead of a thermocouple but seam to be working well and couldn't beet the price

 

[idnative1948]

Thanks for your comment on this. Fact is the present one is a Goodman, but also found the metal furnace flue is toast later today. Now required to use double-wall due to code change over the years. Just keeps getting better and better.

I just installed 12 Goodmans in my apartments they have electronic ignition instead of a thermocouple but seam to be working well and couldn't beet the price

 

[Bulldog0156]

Go high efficiency! I have a brand new high efficiency Carrier that they replaced my old 1965 American Standard with. I had some other stuff done at the same time and the entire bill was a little over $4000. I'm very happy with it so far; high efficiency is nice!

 

[Kaitum]

I replaced a 40 yr old gas boiler a few years ago with a high efficiency Lochinvar. Immediately noticed a difference in the utility bill. It wasn't cheap but the tax credit was a nice bonus. One downside to the high efficiency over the old mechanical design was the newer units have many more electronic components. The old units are very simple from a mechanical standpoint and thus easy / cheaper to fix. At least that's what the service tech told me. But I was happy with the new system.

 

[eltigraska]

At 17 years I would recommend replacement and I second (3rd?) the high efficiency. Will be higher upfront costs, though with needing to replace the flue anyway that will be mitigated some and there are often financial incentives from utilities and tax credits as Kaitum mentioned (this site gives a lot of info on available incentives: http://programs.dsireusa.org/system/program?state=ID).

As far as manufacturers, I would be more concerned about getting a good contractor that will stand behind their work and offer good service for whatever they install. I consider the major players to be pretty much equal (Carrier, Trane, Lennox, York, Goodman, etc.) and in fact many different brands are the same units, just with different labels on them (such as Carrier & Bryant). Doesn't do you much good if you get the top rated furnace from Consumer Reports if nobody in the area services that manufacturer (though I would imagine that wouldn't be too much of a problem in Boise).

 

[fez]

Replace it with a 90%er and vent with pvc since you old vent wont work

 

[katqanna]

second eltigreaska about making sure you can get repairs done locally.

I worked for an HVAC company a bit ago, they service most everything, more than the average bear, but there were some brands they didn't, neither did others in town. Also, make sure about their insurance. Too many companies are not covered if they do damage to your place. Also check if the service company does warranty on their parts and labor. Check the company warranty, for example Trane has 10 year parts and warranty, but that doesn't cover labor.