Going With A New Lennox Furnace
A week ago, I didn’t know anything about furnaces. You set the thermostat to a temperature, and the house then magically adjusts to that temperature. There’s a box in the basement that does it. And that’s all I knew. We recently had a guy come out to do the annual maintenance on that box and he found a problem with the heat exchanger. Whassat?
Apparently, the heat exchanger turns natural gas into hot air that warms your house. If it’s cracked, then it also turns natural gas into carbon monoxide that will kill you. So the guy shut down the gas to the furnace and told us that we would have to replace the heat exchanger before we could turn it back on. He could do it a cost of about $1500. <choke…>
I wanted a second opinion, so I got seven, along with estimates on how much it would cost to replace the entire furnace. As it turns out, the furnace is about twice as big as the house needs (125,000 BTUs for a 60,000 BTU house) and the cold air return is on the back, which is bad. So it was too hot with no air flow. It’s no wonder that the heat exchanger cracked…
Chrissy’s dad said that it would be best to replace the air conditioner at the same time, so I included this requirement in the bidding. Seven contractors came in to talk to me. I learned more about heating and air conditioning than any one person needs to know, unless that’s your job or your furnace just took a flying leap. I was able to make an educated decision.
We’re going with Holloway-Meyers out of Hammond. They’ll be installing a 66,000 BTU 2-stage Lennox furnace with a variable speed blower. Outside, I’m getting a Lennox heat pump that will warm the house until the temp reaches 32 degrees, as well as cool the house in the summer like a regular air conditioner. We’re getting a Lennox humidifier to replace our old one and a touch-screen thermostat that acts as a weather station. All with a ten year parts and labor warranty.
I’m kind of excited that my furnace broke. We’re expecting to see our utility bills drop by half once the high-efficiency equipment is installed. Also, the heat pump qualifies you for NIPSCO’s Good Cents program, which cuts the cost of your kilowatt hours by half in excess of 700 between October and April. If I had known all this before, I would have ordered the work back when we bought the house!
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