new furnace???

[1shotwade]

Just heard from my insurance company they are replacing our furnace after the flood in our house. We are going to upgrade to ac as well. They already replaced the hot water tank. What am I looking for???? The house is 12 years old and the furnace is a lennox merit series.

[stuckincity]

Stay away from "Alberta Energy Group". Apparently they have a new name now so maybe google them.
They're nothing but rip-off artists. It'll cost my daughter 11 thousand in the long run for a new furnace, and they didn't even put in a filter; or get the permit. Now the City is on her @$$ about a permit.

They don't answer phone calls or emails about their so-called "warranty"; and she just might go to a lawyer.

I recently found out that they're one of the door-to-door "energy" pests that just got outlawed.

You might as well look in the Yellow Pages under "furnaces".

She used them in an emergency in the dead of winter and didn't know what she was getting into.
I wish she would have talked to me first. I have one contact, and I also sure would have told her about caber tosser. (sp?)

[elkhunter11]

We installed a new Lennox furnace just over a year ago to replace the builder grade furnace that came with the house, and was giving us problems. We didn't go with the very top end Elite unit, we went with the Elite one model below. We also added A/C , and again went with the Elite series, but not the Elite Signature. We are very pleased with both the furnace and the A/C unit, both work well, and are fairly quiet. I also had a Lennox furnace and A/C in my previous house for over 15 years with no issues.

[CaberTosser]

If your old furnace was 12 years old it might have been a mid-efficient (metal chimney). Any new furnace will be a condensing high efficiency unit which have PVC or polypropylene chimneys they will also pipe in their own combustion air from outside.

I'm not seeing a huge difference between most new furnaces, Carrier or Bryant (same parent company), Lennox, Trane, York, Goodman, Heil; any of these will keep your place warm. The newer smart WIFI thermostats are neat though, I especially like that a homeowner can monitor their house temperature remotely while away on holiday, it can give you a warning to get someone to let in a repair tech before you get any property damage due to freezing. I Just put in a COR thermostat by Carrier last week along with a pair of Bryant 2-stage furnaces and it was an easy setup, the unit had some nice features (and was the first one I had put in as I'm usually doing boiler installations).

One nice thing to get with the installation is vibration dampeners on the supply & return air ducts, they are basically duct adaptors made with rubberized canvas to prevent any vibration from the furnace making its way into the ductwork which can have the annoying habit of amplifying certain frequencies.

[badbrass]

Originally Posted by elkhunter11

We installed a new Lennox furnace just over a year ago to replace the builder grade furnace that came with the house, and was giving us problems. We didn't go with the very top end Elite unit, we went with the Elite one model below. We also added A/C , and again went with the Elite series, but not the Elite Signature. We are very pleased with both the furnace and the A/C unit, both work well, and are fairly quiet. I also had a Lennox furnace and A/C in my previous house for over 15 years with no issues.

Bought the same furnace as elkhunter, and very pleased with it, No AC, The energy efficiency of this model is 95%. Replaced a Lennox Furnace after 25yrs of service!

[dewalt18]

In a very rare move, I'm going to disagree with caber. Not all are equel. I would stay away from lower end brands such as goodman. Yes, it will heat your home, no doubt about it, but in my own personal experience they can be difficult to source parts for on short notice, and not all service companies deal with them. Being done under insurance, I'd advise sticking with a major brand, Lenox, carrier, traine, York etc. should you ever need service on the off hours (overnight or weekend) you'll be better off. As far as the actual unit goes, don't accept anything below 95% efficient. The base Lenox merit series (ML195) is a 95, and they go up from there, up to almost 98 with the Dave Lenox signature series. And bear in mind, the ML195 is the builder model.

PM welcome if you have any questions.

I should add that I'm a journeyman hvac mechanic with 19 years in the trade

[benamen]

I purchased a ML195 and a SLP98 three years ago. Placed the ML195 in the crawl space of my cabin and turned the fan on to test it out. Way too noisy. The SLP98 has the same dimensions so I swapped them out and then put the ML195 in my house. SLP98 is way quieter. I had to do a bunch of work to keep the ML195 noise to a minimum.
Caber, where would you look for those vibration dampeners. I find I get the most noise from the return air ducting.

[Blastoff]

[QUOTE
Caber, where would you look for those vibration dampeners. I find I get the most noise from the return air ducting.[/QUOTE]

I got the same problem lots of noise from the return air, just had my furnace guy out today. Installing a new furnace in two weeks from now. Doing a minor relocating so it will cost a bit more but I can't trust my old one about 20-25 years old it does have the PVC piping though

[ronkaren]

check out York, 100 phase, and quiet.

[MK2750]

From a couple of years ago but still holds true IMO. In fact the new Trane furnaces for 2016-2017 are improved. Trane and American Standard are the same furnace so they actually occupy the one and two spots.

[IMG][/IMG]

[CaberTosser]

Thanks for that chart MK2750, considering the source publication I'd have more faith in it than anything similar commissioned by a manufacturer. Looks like York has some homework to do based on that chart.

And DeWalt18, I basically threw Goodmans name into the list of manufacturers that spilled off the top of my head as one supplier of mine carries them, I can't recall being out to service any of their more recent models so an opinion either way on their reliability is a bit of a crap shoot, I was more speaking towards how close most models are in terms of efficiency these days. I do agree with ensuring repair parts are stocked locally though prior to installing primary heating equipment in clients homes/buildings.