mid efficiency furnace..should I upgrade

fjacky

Just bought a house. It's approx 10-12 years old. It has a mid efficient furnace. Is it worth looking into upgrading it to a high efficient one? Personally I think we are ok. I am just going to make sure the ducts are sealed around the unit itself. I feel the $$ would/could be spent better elsewhere.

thoughts?

Houston204

Your money might be better spent on upgrading windows and insulation.

raylo32

From a strict cost perspective maybe stay with what you have. But.... if you plan to stay there for awhile I think it is a good idea to upgrade to a new high eff unit. In other words if you think you will be there long enough that the old furnace would need significant repairs or replaced, then do it now and the new furnace savings will begin accruing now. Also a good idea to get a multi-stage or modulating furnace that will enhance your comfort. Anyway, I just did this myself by upgrading a 15 year old mid-eff that still worked (but for how much longer?) to a 2-stage high eff variable speed unit. I was even able to sell the old furnace since the parts are still in high demand out there.

Marty S.

Also depends on where you live. A furnace in a warm climate that runs 500 hours a year wouldn't be worth replacing while one that runs 2500 hours a year in a cold climate would be.

gregzoll

How are you determining that it is mid efficiency? Do you have records of the temp it was set at for both heating and cooling? Do you have records of the number of days that the temp was set at, including heating degree days? How do you know that the previous home owners did not jack around with the thermostat every time they felt too warm or too cold? Do you have at least five years of utility bills to show what the previous homeowners were spending to heat, cool, and leave the lights on in every room, along with running the dryer and washer all the time?

There is no real way to determine efficiency of the unit, until you use it for a couple of heating & cooling seasons. This past Summer was brutal on people for air conditioning. Get the windows updated if they are single pane, get the doors fixed to not let air out. Run the numbers through http://hes.lbl.gov/consumer/ Use the detail part, when you get to describing the home info.

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hvac benny

Greg, an 80% furnace is also referred to as 'mid-efficient'. An easy way to identify them is to look at the vent: it will be metal b-vent. A 90%+ furnace, also called a condensing furnace, is referred to as high-efficient, also easily identified by the venting, which will be plastic.

REP

Something to chew on.
If you could find a 150% furnace and it was too big for the house then youi would be losing money every month.
The number one thing anybody can do to control heating (asnd cooling) costs is to make sure it is the absolute right sizeb for your house.
To know that you must have a manuel "J" and a manuel "D" done for your house.Even if somebody charged you to do that,it would be worth it.
After that is done then you look fror more cost savings with things like hi-effiency ,two stage,varible speed etc.To spend the big dollars for that stuff and get the wrong size is just plain stupid.