If you have a hydronic heating system, and you have an older Wirsbo manifold system I would think about looking at the condition of that system. In particular I would be looking at the gaskets, these have rubber or ceramic type gaskets, these gaskets need to inspected and or replaced every 10 years(in my opinion).
Wirsbo Manifold
Here you see a 5 zone Wirsbo manifold(s), 1 manifold for supply and 1 for return. 3 gaskets are needed in each manifold.
Opened Wirsbo Manifold
Above you can see where we opened up the manifold for inspection, making sure to have drained the water from the system below the manifolds before starting.
Damaged Gaskets
In this manifold we found several damaged gaskets, we elected to replace all 6 gaskets in 3 different locations through out the home.
Heating And Cooling Skagit County
Need a Heat Pump, Air Conditioner, Furnace, Boiler or Tankless Water Heater? We install them all over Skagit county including Mount Vernon WA, Burlington WA, Anacortes, Sedro Woolley, La Conner, Stanwood WA, and on Camano Is.
Time was up for this 20 year old Lennox, actually looking at the burners Id say time was up several years ago. I can honestly say my customer got the life out of the old Lennox.
Older Lennox Furnace
You have to wonder what the installer and or designer was thinking when they installed this Lennox furnace facing towards a basement concrete wall. Obviously to me it was easier for the installer, but what about servicing or simply changing the filter.
New 80% American Standard Furnace
I turned the new American Standard 80% furnace so it faced out in to the room and then installed a new Honeywell 4″ pleated filter system. Now my customer can replace the filter easier and the service technician has plenty of room to do maintenance.
Heating And Cooling Skagit County
Need a Heat Pump, Air Conditioner, Furnace, Boiler or Tankless Water Heater? We install them all over Skagit county including Mount Vernon WA, Burlington WA, Anacortes, Sedro Woolley, La Conner, Stanwood WA, and on Camano Is.
This paticular customer just bought a existing home, unfortuantly the only source of heat was some electric space heaters. They quickly removed all the space heaters and had me come in and install a new heating system.
New American Standard Furnace Location
After picking a location in the garage we punched a hole into the crawl space so we can run the required supply ducting. You can see space was limited but fortunately just the right amount needed.
New Supply Base Can
After measuring and fabricating all the required ducting we installed the first piece. The base can not only supports the furnace it lifts it to the required 18″ above the garage floor as well as acts as a supply plenum. Here you can see us sealing the base can internally. The supply duct comes off the base can and enters the crawl space through the hole we cut.
New American Standard Furnace On Base Can
Once the base can was in position we installed the new American Standard 80% gas furnace on it, the furnace is sealed to the base can with silicon. We then started on the supply ducting in the crawl space as well as the return air into the attic.
Return Ducting Going In to Attic.
The return ducting runs from the top of the unit into the attic to a return grille. As you can see we used round ducting for easier installation and used metal because we are penetrating the firewall between the garage and the home. As you can see we seal as we go. We also installed the venting up through the existing roof, making sure to keep all our clearances as required and ran the gas line to from the meter to the new furnace.
Insulated Ducting
After the sealing drys we insulated the ducting with R8 3″ insulation.
Gas Line Under Test.
The new gas line is put under a 30lb test for 24 hours, then a new gas meter installed.
New American Standard 80% Gas Furnace Installed
Here is a finale picture of the American Standard 80% gas furnace with a new Honeywell 4″ pleated air filter system.
Heating And Cooling Skagit County
Need a Heat Pump, Air Conditioner, Furnace, Boiler or Tankless Water Heater? We install them all over Skagit county including Mount Vernon WA, Burlington WA, Anacortes, Sedro Woolley, La Conner, Stanwood WA, and on Camano Is.
The existing Trane 80% 2 stage furnace was going on 18 years and getting to the point where it made no sense to through money into it any longer, my customer had done their research and really wanted a modulating furnace. They wanted more comfort as well as energy savings.
Existing Trane 80% 2 Stage
The new American Standard furnace is physically larger but will operated at a much lower BTU than the older 2 stage Trane. This combined with a high efficient blower motor operating in a ventilation mode will make the home a lot more comfortable and more efficient.
New American Standard 95% Modulating Variable Speed furnace.
As you can see I had to make an base can transition for under the furnace than I installed a Honeywell 4″ pleated air filter above the unit. New PVC venting went up through the existing roof opening. A drain line was added to drain of condensate and then to finish it up we replaced their thermostat with an American Standard communicating programmable thermostat.
Heating And Cooling Skagit County
Need a Heat Pump, Air Conditioner, Furnace, Boiler or Tankless Water Heater? We install them all over Skagit county including Mount Vernon WA, Burlington WA, Anacortes, Sedro Woolley, La Conner, Stanwood WA, and on Camano Is.
Arbys in Oak Harbor had 2 out of their 3 packaged air conditioners go down, both units suffered similar failures that where very costly to repair. Arbys elected to replace both units with 2 brand new Lennox Gas Packs.
Existing Trane Gas Packs
The Trane gas packs served the front counter and the dining area. Unfortunately these units went down right before winter.
New Curb Adaptors
Because the new units will not fit on the existing curbs some special curb adapters(above) had to be fabricated. There are actual companies that specialize in making these adaptors for different types of HVAC equipment.
Old equipment being removed.
With a little help from Mount Vernon Towing we had the old Trane units removed from the roof and the new Lennox units put on.
Existing Curbs
Here you can see the existing curbs that the new curb adaptors fit on to. The only draw back from using curb adaptors is it actually raises the units up about 22″. The other method is to remove the existing curb and installing a new one.
New Lennox gas packs
The new units sat right on to the new curb adaptors. We reconnected up to the existing gas pipe and installed the new economizers and smoke detectors. Arbys again has heat and air conditioning.
Heating And Cooling Skagit County
Need a Heat Pump, Air Conditioner, Furnace, Boiler or Tankless Water Heater? We install them all over Skagit county including Mount Vernon WA, Burlington WA, Anacortes, Sedro Woolley, La Conner, Stanwood WA, and on Camano Is.
There is not a lot of HVAC companies that still work on steam boilers, and there is certainly not a lot that still work on commercial steam boilers.
Commercial Steam Boiler
Here we have a older boiler with even older controls, the boiler is dead cold and has a burnt out control board. The problem is getting replacement parts that simply snap into place for these older boilers.
Old Steam Boiler Controls
The control board in the picture above that was bad is located on top of the panel box, the new board is installed inside of the panel box on the bottom right. After dialing in the control board and firing up the boiler we realized the condensate pump was not working, the pump was bound up. This is not the first time we had a bound up pump on this system.
Condensate collector box
We felt because there was no strainer (filter) on the condensate coming back that we would be seeing more issues with the pump and the condensate collector box. We ended up replacing the entire collector box with the pump.
New collector box
Here you see the new condensate collector box and pump. We also replaced the corroded check valve and added a strainer to the system.
New Strainer
By adding a strainer we will keep debris from coming back to the condensate collector and by adding a valve we can easily clean the strainer.
Heating And Cooling Skagit County
Need a Heat Pump, Air Conditioner, Furnace, Boiler or Tankless Water Heater? We install them all over Skagit county including Mount Vernon WA, Burlington WA, Anacortes, Sedro Woolley, La Conner, Stanwood WA, and on Camano Is.
This older Amana furnace has seen its last days, I would have to say that it has lived a full life. If you have a furnace in your home and it has a pilot light … seriously give me a call and lets start saving you money.
Older Amana 80%
I often look for signs that there has be equipment changes before, like vent reducers, over/under sized base cans and or different wall colors behind the equipment. Here we have a very odd situation, we have no real base can … just a transition up to the furnace with a wooden stand under the furnace. I have to say this “It worked!”
American Standard 95% STD Furnace
After removing the older Amana we installed a supply base can and adapted to the existing supply ducting. Just under the base can we installed air deflectors to help divide up the air. The new American Standard 95% furnace sat right on the new base can and we installed a new transition from the furnace to the existing return ducting. The new PVC vent went straight up through the roof and the drain was ran into the existing drain line. Everything else was reconnected.
Now a repeated note … I only recommend what I would use if it where my home, in this case the ducting was not insulated and there where some duct leakage issues. So I recommended an American Standard 95% NON-Variable furnace. A variable would have cost them even more money to operate.
Heating And Cooling Skagit County
Need a Heat Pump, Air Conditioner, Furnace, Boiler or Tankless Water Heater? We install them all over Skagit county including Mount Vernon WA, Burlington WA, Anacortes, Sedro Woolley, La Conner, Stanwood WA, and on Camano Is.
From time to time I get asked what do you do with my old furnace or hot water tank? Well I decided to post a few pictures of our recycling bin, not exactly our recycling bin but Skagit River Steels recycling bin.
Recycling Bin
So to answer your question your piece of equipment does get recycled at Skagit River Steel in Burlington. No used equipment or parts are reused or sold.
Recycling Bin Ready To Haul
Heating And Cooling Skagit County
Need a Heat Pump, Air Conditioner, Furnace, Boiler or Tankless Water Heater? We install them all over Skagit county including Mount Vernon WA, Burlington WA, Anacortes, Sedro Woolley, La Conner, Stanwood WA, and on Camano Is.