Anyone get their furnace replaced recently in Vancouver?

[fkshiu]

Ol' Bessie looks like she's gonna pack it in soon. Want to upgrade to a 90% efficient furnace for the all rebates and stuff.

Anyone have any recommendations in or around Vancouver?

[Veng68]

Franklin,

Have you looked into getting a heat pump? I've always been interested in heat pumps

My furnace is not on it's last legs but it does need to be replaced.

I think Untamed has one...... so he can give you some insight.

Cheers,
Vic

[Tom R]

Hi Franklin

I would look into Heat Pumps. I believe they are very efficient and you get air conditioning included.

Tom R

[Veng68]

Nice article on heat pump.

http://www.housesmartheating.com/heat-pumps.html

Cheers,
Vic

[plutoniumJoe]

Hi Franklin,

I never thanked you for the Green Digi and the GSP, they are both doing well and they prompted me to get some metal halides.

As for the furnace, I replaced mine about a year and a half ago. We had Coleman Heating and Gas install it, all through Costco. At the time you could get $350 from Terasen, and $500 from the government if you had a home efficience inspection done. We had the inspection done which costs oddly enough $500 but I knew I would be replacing some windows and insulating the attic which added another $1100 worth of rebates so it was worth it for me.

The furnace itself is a Lenox G61V and I love it. Gas bills have dropped about 30% and it is super quiet. The old one used to wake the family up when it kicked in and all too often we wound up with a scared toddler in our bed. You are welcome to come buy anytime if you want to check it out.

Joe.

[cprowler]

We went with a heat pump and a mid efficient furnace as you need a good working furnace to work with the heat pump. The furnace is used to blow the hot and cold air through the house in the existing duct work and on the very cold days when it gets below -2C the heat pump is bypassed and only the furnace is used.

The heat pump is more efficient than the 90% efficient furnaces but any money we save is spent on the A/C in the summer and then some, but we have A/C and that was a big part of it for us.

[fkshiu]

Thanks for the replies.

Ironically, I already have a heat pump - a very old one. According to the various estimators and repairmen who have looked at it, it's one of the very first heat pumps made from the early 80s and it's attached to an old electric furnace. It's not doing so good anymore and I've already had it repaired a couple of times.

I've looked into getting a new heat pump but the significant upfront cost over and above simply a new furnace just isn't worth it (even with the government rebates) because we may well be moving to a bigger place in a couple of years. Having AC would be nice but we find the we hardly ever used it even in the summer. We just hid in the basement with the fish tank.

I've pretty much settled on either a Trane or a Lennox according to my research, but a big factor in how well it works comes down to the installation. That's way I'm trolling for people who have recently purchased had new furnaces installed and their experiences.

[wolf_bluejay]

I just replaced my furnace at my place in kamloops, so it's a bit colder that van. However, I'd think it might be worth pointing something out about the newer heat pump systems.

I've get a variable speed fan in my Bryant system, and the heat pump runs down to a little colder than -8C before the furnace kicks in. But the BIG deal ofr me was the humidity. The controller has a humidistat and acutally adjust the fan speed the manage the humidity better. When the AC runs, it can acutally slow down the fan to reduce the coil temp, and drop more water out of the air. It will even kick in when the AC is not needed to remove moisture.

IE, if you are in "AC/heat" mode, and it's not too cold outside. I can kick on the AC for a short period, with slow moving air so the coil is near freezing, just to reduce the humidity levels in the house..... And all summer it did a real good job of keeping it down. It stayed at about 25% in the house all summer, and now that it is winter, it gets up to about 45%.

So, in short. The heat pump with a variable speed fan(which gets a much bigger grant) has a few benifits other than heating/cooling the house. I don't even know if you really need backup heat in Van with the new pumps, or at least a small electric backup only.

So far this winter, the furnace has yet to turn on once, and it ranges from +5 to -5 lately.