Purchasing a new furnace - Page 2

Coppertop41 · ‎07-19-2010

No air conditioning in house. Thought about adding it on but I can't afford to. Here in Southern California there are only a couple of sporadic times where I would wish we had a/c. It would be great to have if I sell the house, but can't afford it right now. Just debating between Signature Series and Elite Series. Elite Series is cheaper but seems to have some problems when I read various review sites. It is the typical thing 50% of reviewers love it and 50% hate it. It makes my head spin. Plus I am going to have to replace the roof and fascia board so have to save money for that.

Tigriss · ‎03-12-2010

GET ANOTHER QUOTE! I don't mean to yell at you, but your quote seems consistently high compared to others with larger homes in a colder climate. You may have been taken advantage of. Get more quotes from different contractors. When others in colder climates and larger homes have it done for cheaper, like half, you NEED another quote. He must be ripping out everything and replacing everything, ducting, furnace, insulation, electrical lines, fuel lines, everything and still wouldn't justify the 8K price. We do HVAC systems down here measured by ton like 2 ton or 3 ton, but all the furnaces I looked at are rated by energy efficiency and BTUs, even Lennox's website rates them by BTU size and not ton unless the T not BTU stands for ton. Get more information and quotes.

aubnwa01 · ‎03-09-2010

I replaced the central air/gas furnace in my 1700 sq. ft. home in 2011 with a 3 ton Dave Lennox Signature 2 stage system & it cost me $13,000. I live in a very hot climate (AZ) & seldom use the furnace even in the winter, but my power bill went down by half the very 1st month from it pulling so much less power for cooling. It runs probably 80% of the time in the 1st stage & only kicks into the 2nd stage, which pulls more power, when it gets above 105° or so & that saves on the electric bill.

ETA: My system is an 18 SEER, which was top of the line in 2011, but I think the SEER ratings (Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rating) are higher on the new units now.

LonestarBabs · ‎06-26-2011

Ok, I was confused in my previous post. Thought A/C was incorporated somehow. So you DO need to get more quotes as the price for just a furnace -- measured in BTUs and not tons -- is a bit high. That's why I recommended getting a very detailed line-item estimate to determine where the costs are. I would expect $4-6K for the furnace. Keep in mind you might get a rebate from Lennox as well as from your local city or power company, so that could put money back in your pocket.

If you live in CA there might be a price differential due to state/local regulations not present in other states. Don't know what the going rate is for install, either.

3 ton is good for A/C but you're not getting that unit? Why did the estimate quote 3 ton?

Evie2004 · ‎09-09-2010

@Coppertop41 wrote:
Same size furnace as in the quote. Right now in November inside house temp this past week has been around 66 when waking up to 69 to 70 during late day. Afraid to run the furnace so just bundled up. Now that it is just me (and two kitties) and I am at work during day I envision only running the furnace in the morning when I wake up maybe one cycle to warm up the house. Then shut it off while I am at work. In the evenings maybe just one cycle or so and then shut off at 9:00 pm until I wake up around 5:00 am where I would run the one cycle. Weekends might use it a little more.

@Coppertop41@ we used to switch our heat pump on & off also, depending on when someone was home, but when we installed a new system 3 years ago, we got a programmable thermostat & we love it..our electric usage is 1/2 what it was, energy costs are higher, but actual usage is down..we keep it set @ 68 degrees in winter & 78 in the summer..