Furnace kicked the bucket tonight...

[Jay106n]

I came home from work to find my oil boiler furnace leaking water and steaming everywhere and a big puddle of water on the basement floor in the middle of the night. Kind of a big deal, and a costly situation, but my first thought is, hey!, good thing I got my wood stove and dry wood! It is not the coldest of nights, so timing isn't half bad either. It is a decent 30 degrees at 1am, and is supposed to be a raining and warm day today at 55ish. Anyway, I usually burn as supplemental and wasn't even going to burn tonight, but i have to get my old All Nighter Moe to primary heat mode tonight. Got her fired up on a load of ash, I may dip into my oak, just to keep a good over night burn going. Now lets hope this furnace repair bill doesn't knock me on my rear...

 

[sepulvd]

i been burning full time this year due to my furnace giving out. I got a couple of estimates and they were over 4 grand but i use propane. So hopefully yours isnt that high but i also live on a island

 

[Jay106n]

i been burning full time this year due to my furnace giving out. I got a couple of estimates and they were over 4 grand but i use propane. So hopefully yours isnt that high but i also live on a island

I hope not too. I just had it tuned up a month ago, so I'm hoping nothing major. Going to get some techs in today to see what the deal is. Hell, at that price I would just buy a whole new system.

 

[sepulvd]

Yep thats what am gonna end up doing it still 4 grand for me but my old furnice is from 1970 something. So the new one would be a incredbile upgrade.

 

[Jay106n]

Yep thats what am gonna end up doing it still 4 grand for me but my old furnice is from 1970 something. So the new one would be a incredbile upgrade.

Mine is "only" 25 years old lol, but yes that would be a nice upgrade for you, it would probably pay for itself over a few years.

 

[zig]

Yep thats what am gonna end up doing it still 4 grand for me but my old furnice is from 1970 something. So the new one would be a incredbile upgrade.

The furnace in my old house was built by Dave Lennox personally I think. Used 2 tanks of LP a winter before it died. New 95% furnace @140k btu used about 70% in a year. It's a big initial cost but worth is in the long run and paid for itself in two winters.

 

[Beer Belly]

Check to see if your Furnace is a Burnham Model V73.....ours went two weeks before closing on the house, turns out the Burnham Model V73 had bad Blocks that would crack, and we were able to get it warrantied, just had to pay labor. My BIL, who is a Master Plumber, told us years before about the Block, and if it should go.........when we told our Heating Service Company Tech, he said "no it's not warranty", and handed us a quote for 9k....I told him call your boss......half an hour later, got a quote for $900....much better

 

[sportbikerider78]

Mine is the house original, 1989 and the glass gasket between the burner and the cast boiler developed a leak and warped the boiler. I'm not going to risk running it when I'm not home.

Can I buy a stripped down unit? I can't see tossing the burner and pump if they are working well. Or I could get all new and then sell each on the used market.

 

[Jay106n]

Well the tech came out today, and it turned out to be a pretty simple fix, so nothing major, relatively low cost, and its back up and running. Still happy to have my wood stove tho!

 

[sepulvd]

Mine is the house original, 1989 and the glass gasket between the burner and the cast boiler developed a leak and warped the boiler. I'm not going to risk running it when I'm not home.

Can I buy a stripped down unit? I can't see tossing the burner and pump if they are working well. Or I could get all new and then sell each on the used market.

Your better off buying a new one. Your gonna have to pretty much strip the whole unit to replace the parts and the news one depending what you use to heat the house oil,gas,propane the new stuff is more efficient. My broken one is 92% when it was brand new almost 20 aomething years ago. In realtity my old one peobably runs at 80 % efficient at its age.Now the new ones start at 95%. Big difference

 

[sepulvd]

Well the tech came out today, and it turned out to be a pretty simple fix, so nothing major, relatively low cost, and its back up and running. Still happy to have my wood stove tho!

Congrats you got luck man

 

[Ashful]

The furnace in my old house was built by Dave Lennox personally I think.

Lol... that paints a picture.

 

[peakbagger]

Buy a lottery ticket and be glad you had a good service tech . There are more than few unscrupulous firms with fancy box trucks with overpriced replacement equipment that would pull up in your time of need and convince you that you had to replace it immediately and they just happened to have one of what you need in the truck.

Years ago I had a hot air furnace fail in a house I had just bought. The tech I called out of the book insisted he would have to condemn it immediately and call the fire department unless I ordered a new furnace on the spot. I was new to the area but asked around and got another company to look at it. He put a temporary patch in place told me he could order one and have it in three days. His price was half of the first guy. For the price difference I could have moved into hotel for few days and still saved money. I ended up stripping out the furnace and still have the circulation fan in a dust collector 25 years later.

I actually had a wood stove that came with that house but as a condition of sale I had to pull it and seal up the flue opening as it was non code install.

 

[Jay106n]

Buy a lottery ticket and be glad you had a good service tech . There are more than few unscrupulous firms with fancy box trucks with overpriced replacement equipment that would pull up in your time of need and convince you that you had to replace it immediately and they just happened to have one of what you need in the truck.

Years ago I had a hot air furnace fail in a house I had just bought. The tech I called out of the book insisted he would have to condemn it immediately and call the fire department unless I ordered a new furnace on the spot. I was new to the area but asked around and got another company to look at it. He put a temporary patch in place told me he could order one and have it in three days. His price was half of the first guy. For the price difference I could have moved into hotel for few days and still saved money. I ended up stripping out the furnace and still have the circulation fan in a dust collector 25 years later.

I actually had a wood stove that came with that house but as a condition of sale I had to pull it and seal up the flue opening as it was non code install.

Yeah, I use a good local family owned company. He found the issues and fixed them. He found something else and initially suggested getting it replaced, he then talked me out of paying for a replacement, because he said he could fix it. And he did. Saved me hundreds.

 

[gerry100]

I've got a '74 model oil burner that just keeps chugging along.

When investigating a possible upgrade I concluded that oil burners , as simple as they are, have not gained any efficiency in 40yrs, so there is no reason to buy new if you can fix

If we change, we'll probably go propane if we can find a place to bury the tank

 

[Doug MacIVER]

put in a Solaia 4100 two mos. ago.86% eff. replaced everything below 6 zone valves,$6575.00. no complaints so far,1973?
your gonna save a bunch of oil. good luck

 

[bfitz3]

Have a '93 furnace. Moved in four years ago. Three years ago, the heat exchanger went bad in the last month of a 20 yr warranty. First company wanted to sell me a new furnace. 2nd company used the warranty and replaced the warranty charging labor only. Turned out the manufacturer had gone digital and had neither a replacement heat exchanger or plans available. So, they went to the archives, dug up the prints and undoubtedly spent a heck of a a lot of labor putting together something that had no jigs etc to help with the build. I would have jumped at even half off a new furnace, undoubtedly saving them cash, but no.

Meanwhile, I've installed a woodstove. In the first year, I've gone from using ~1200 gal of propane to roughly 75 gallons, the vast majority of which is for hot water. I love my woodstove!

 

[Oldman47]

put in a Solaia 4100 two mos. ago.86% eff. replaced everything below 6 zone valves,$6575.00. no complaints so far,1973?
your gonna save a bunch of oil. good luck

That sounds incredibly expensive to me. About 10 years back I replaced everything but the ductwork on my forced air Nat Gas furnace for under $2000, including the installation charges, with a furnace rated at over 85%. Be careful with super efficient units. The exhaust from them is cold and requires a chimney that is not affected by the wet acidic exhaust gasses. Mine shares a chimney with a gas water heater so no way could I combine its exhaust with a 90+% efficient furnace.

 

[Ashful]

Solaia = Mercedes of boilers. Not cheap, but good.

Like Mercedes, not entirely justifiable, from a purely financial standpoint. But one can still make a pretty good argument as to why you'd want to own one.

 

[gerry100]

put in a Solaia 4100 two mos. ago.86% eff. replaced everything below 6 zone valves,$6575.00. no complaints so far,1973?
your gonna save a bunch of oil. good luck

My understanding is that 86% is not much better than the 84% enjoyed by the old units. Gas furnaces on the other hand made some large improvements

 

[peakbagger]

Gas condensing boilers are much more efficient then the older non condensing boilers if the house is set up for low temp heat emitters. They also work better with outdoor reset controllers as unlike oil they can take a far lower return temp.

 

[Doug MacIVER]

My understanding is that 86% is not much better than the 84% enjoyed by the old units. Gas furnaces on the other hand made some large improvements

explained to me that the three pass design heating only 4.3 gallons of h2o is what makes the newer designs more efficient.at install it took 3-4 mins. to reach 200*. my 1991 burnhan boiler had a crack in the exchange so had to replace.
my dealer explained may installs have saved up to 30% over older designs. before the wood stove our oil consumption averaged 1200-1400/yr. the wood stove dropped it to 650-800 depending on the cold.
although very warm dec., used only 85 gal. this is a heated area of 4k sq.ft. heat from a small jotul f100 really cuts the bill.

 

[Doug MacIVER]

Solaia = Mercedes of boilers. Not cheap, but good.

Like Mercedes, not entirely justifiable, from a purely financial standpoint. But one can still make a pretty good argument as to why you'd want to own one.

2-3 grand less than the ferrari models. from your neck of the woods, Boyertown,pa. easy to service and less complicated according to my oil guy. the whole frt opens out like a wood stove. lucky my zone valves and upper stuff was all good. have a day

 

[Ashful]

2-3 grand less than the ferrari models. from your neck of the woods, Boyertown,pa. easy to service and less complicated according to my oil guy. the whole frt opens out like a wood stove. lucky my zone valves and upper stuff was all good. have a day

Isn't Boyertown Furnace just the USA importer for this brand? I was under the impression that Solaia was a European manufacturer.

 

[Doug MacIVER]

true

Isn't Boyertown Furnace just the USA importer for this brand? I was under the impression that Solaia was a European manufacturer.

true. again the oil guy said their service superior when needed than competitors. my nephew recently put in a smaller Boderus with $0 install costs. that had a $6k cost.