New furnace - A Tale of Two Winters

[Onkel Neal]

Man, a tale of woe. Over the last two winters, when I have to use my furnace, there is an usettling BOOM when it lights. Yeah, I know

How unsettling? Well, I'm used to it and I know it's not a good thing, but when my folks or any friends are over and the furnace lights and goes BOOOOM! they usually jump and exclaim at the same time, "What was that?!" I shrug and say, "That's my furnace lighting."

Being unemployed, I'm not sure what's worse, having to spend $2000 on a new furnace or dying in my sleep due to CO poisoning... alas. I decided to call the Heat & A/C people. Naturally the guy says something like the heat exchanger is cracked, going to need to replace the whole unit--$2000, someone is going to Vegas for the weekend.

I called my buddy Jesse to whine. My biggest complaint is, furnaces are really old technology. The darn things are nothing more than a few pieces of pipe in a metal box. I can get a new hi tech computer for $500 and furnace costs $2000? Jesse said, "Why don't you take your computer and put it in the attic?" Not much help, that guy.

The worse part, the Heat & A/C guy wouldn't put the unit back together. The coldest winter spell in recorded Texas history (thanks, Al Gore!) is coming in 10 hours and here I am without heat. When I mentioned this he shrank back in mock horror and exclaimed, "That unit is not safe! I could go to prison if your house burns down, or if you die in your sleep." (I mentioned that to Jesse, he said to buy a CO detector and leave a window cracked). I said, "Come on, man. I ride a motorcycle, I used to date Russian women, I'm used to a foolhardy lifestyle. I'm not used to freezing." But he wouldn't budge.

So, I have devised a new plan. I am going to go round the town and pick up any homeless people I can find and park them in the living room. I figure if I get 10 or so, the collective body heat will sustain the house temps about 60 degrees. Plus I will be giving back to the community. Win-win, right? I just hope they will leave when spring comes.

[SteamWake]

LOL I had one of those oil fired furnaces and yea it would go "wooomp" when it started.

Nothing like having a raging blast furnace beneath your house.

Anyhow I replaced it with a new high efficency heat pump. Only problem is we did not have a big enough electrical service to the house to connect the heat strips

Heater works okay except when its cold out

I got one of those hydronic radiators that plugs in and they will warm a room quite nicely.

http://www.nextag.com/filled-heater-...ator/shop-html

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I called my buddy Jesse to whine. My biggest complaint is, furnaces are really old technology. The darn things are nothing more than a few pieces of pipe in a metal box. I can get a new hi tech computer for $500 and furnace costs $2000? Jesse said, "Why don't you take your computer and put it in the attic?" Not much help, that guy.

But that's what friends are for, to give you stupid but realistic answers! I've met Jesse, and I think he knows more than you do.

The homeless idea is a good one, until you see how much it costs to feed them. I think the new furnace might end up being cheaper.

How about this: Open the door to that nice connected garage you have, start the car and the bike and go to bed. You won't be warmer, but you'll suffocate a lot quicker and that will solve the problem, won't it?

Just remember to leave the latest GF to me in your will.

[AVGWarhawk]

Yeah, I had the craps of a new furnace a few years back. $2500.00. I had a friend handle it though. I got a larger outside unit to cool/heat better. I have a heatpump. These suck but hey it is what it is. I feel your pain. I would recommend getting a nice portable unit. Large as you can find. Maybe two. These should handle the heating in your home. At least it is less expensive then the furnace and a quick fix for now.

In my basement I have one of those oil portable electric heaters. It keeps my kids warm and believe it or not the heat comes up the split foyer stairs and heats the second floor. It has actually kept the heat pump from working all the time when it hits 30 degrees or less.

Originally Posted by SteamWake

LOL I had one of those oil fired furnaces and yea it would go "wooomp" when it started.

Nothing like having a raging blast furnace beneath your house.

Anyhow I replaced it with a new high efficency heat pump. Only problem is we did not have a big enough electrical service to the house to connect the heat strips

Heater works okay except when its cold out

I got one of those hydronic radiators that plugs in and they will warm a room quite nicely.

http://www.nextag.com/filled-heater-...ator/shop-html

I used to have one of those, what they do is warm the air in one part of the room and create this circulation effect, warm air goes up and draws cool air in. Meaning there will be this draft-like moving of the air. Although my student flat was pretty drafty anyway.

My advice is insulating your house well. You can save up in electric bill a lot if you just put in some effort to locate where the heat 'escapes' from your place. Put extra attention to the rooms where you spend most of the time.

[longam]

The oil filled electric models are the best I have seen. They radiate heat real well. A couple of these and you should be set.



http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1...atalogId=10053

[Jimbuna]

Dear Mr Neal Rothschild Stevens

I believe your needs would be better served if you simply converted some of your financial assets into cash $ and relocated into a newer property.

If you insist on behaving in a miserly manner, might I suggest you spend the winter in the hot club located at the rear of your ranch for longer periods than you have been accustomed to of late.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Just remember to leave the latest GF to me in your will.

I'll leave you my last three GFs if you can spare some matches. Maybe one of them slut busses will break down in front of my house, that could solve all kinds of problems for me...

Originally Posted by jimbuna

Dear Mr Neal Rothschild Stevens

I believe your needs would be better served if you simply converted some of your financial assets into cash $ and relocated into a newer property.

If you insist on behaving in a miserly manner, might I suggest you spend the winter in the hot club located at the rear of your ranch for longer periods than you have been accustomed to of late.

Hey, that's a good idea, I can go sit a spell in the hot tub when I get cold. But it sure is gonna be rough when I get out all wet.

Now, excuse me, I have to visit the neighbor's yard to chop some firewood.

[Catfish]

Hi,
bad luck .. so do you at least have a wood-fired oven ?

When we began to build this house we forever thought about which oven/furnace whatever we should buy and install, to be most independent from those "good-willed" gas- and oil distributors, and there were quite some ideas:

1. Buy a wood fired oven, with water filled pipes to support or even exchange the "normal" furnace. You could also buy an "all-burner" or whatever the right expression is in english, and burn all kinds of advertising magazines and papers, newspapers, coal, wood or whatever. You certainly need a fire-proof chimney for this. And you need a hot water buffer reservoir.

Bad part is you will always need wood or something to burn, and electricity for the circulating pump(s). You could certainly use a stirling engine for pumping (driven by the heat of the oven), but i would have to build one myself, nothing on the market.


2. Get a combined heat and power unit (called Block-Heiz-Kraftwerk, or BHKW in Germany), this is being supported in Germany financially, basically an engine which heats water via exhaust (heat exchanger) and produces electricity as a side effect, which is sold and paid for.

The engine is noisy, will have to be maintained, and you also need stuff to run it, but at least you can choose from Diesel, petrol, plant oil, natural or compressed gas, or whatever. You will also need a buffer reservoir for hot water.

If the house is too small, or well insulated, the engine will not run long enough to produce enough electricity to pay off its existence and maintenance costs - but would have been a good idea (house too small and too well insulated - get a warmed swimming pool and heated plastered car entrance against snow in winter, and it will work all the time lol.)


3. Oil or gas furnaces - you are completely dependent on the companies providing it, but it is the cheapest solution to get any furnace.
Oil: You will need stinking storage tanks which take room.
Gas: If anyone decides to cut you off the supply for whatever reason that's it.

4. Geothermal energy - but ... even a hundred meter borehole for a snall one-family house is expensive, and you need circulation pumps (electricity) and a compressor (electricity) to bring the water temperature up to the desired level.


We ended up with a cheap gas furnace (combined hot water and heating system), but big hot-water reservoir supported by solar collectors. The whole thing costed about 5000 Euros, installation of radiators etc. included, but it is quite efficient and we have very low gas costs. We also plan to get a wood-fired oven with water pipes to support or replace the furnace, but we only built the chimney for this as yet.


I would go for a combined system in the long run, maybe with some solar collector support for warming up service water, and a burner that eats everything, combined with a heated water pipe system, and a well-insulated big buffer reservoir for hot water.


I know it does not help you now, but repairing old technology is mostly more expensive than thinking about a new solution that will work for 20+ years

Greetings,
Catfish

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by longam

The oil filled electric models are the best I have seen. They radiate heat real well. A couple of these and you should be set.



http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1...atalogId=10053

Yep, that is what I have in my basement. Works great, it is safe and efficient.

[antikristuseke]

get a decent sleeping bag, problem solved

[jimbob]

Long term plan:
Insulation of the house is the key.
Then a little bit extra heating if needed.

But, that won't help you right now so here's my short term plan:
Get cozy with teh GF.

[Letum]

Originally Posted by longam

The oil filled electric models are the best I have seen. They radiate heat real well. A couple of these and you should be set.



http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1...atalogId=10053

I have the same model sat next to me.
Heats the room great, but is very expensive to run.

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by Letum

I have the same model sat next to me.
Heats the room great, but is very expensive to run.

They dont really draw all that much power and most have a dual setting of 1,000 or 2,000 watts.

But yea leaving one on day/night is going to rack up a bill.

Here we have been cutting off the heat pump once the temprature reaches the freezing point as it is pointless to run in below that.

So we try to warm the house up as much as we can during the day and try to ride out the night. Though it is quite chilly in the morning it was about 45F inside my house yesterday morning.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

My biggest complaint is, furnaces are really old technology.

That's modern compared to our technology:



Still, it keeps one room of the house nice and warm, hot water bottles, blankets, and costly electric heaters keep the other rooms just about habitable.