RHEEM to American Standard 95%

RHEEM furnaces have got to be my #1 furnace replacement, combining the fact there are so many in this area as well as there problematic inducers and pressure switchs. Its not hard to make a case to replace them. In this case the customer already replaced the inducer a month ago ..now looking at a circuit control board, they elected to replace the furnace. Good choice.

Older RHEEM 80% Furnace

Older RHEEM 80% Furnace

A big issue with RHEEM when doing a replacement is the size of the unit, their about 6″ shorter than the American Standard, but fortunately they have the same footprint.

New American Standard 95%

New American Standard 95%

This particular replacement to the American Standard 95% 2-Stage Variable speed furnace was fairly easy. The condensate drain line was already in place, the existing duct work was easily modified, the furnace location was in the garage and the customers(including their dog) where very pleasant to be around.
Alpine Heating And Cooling

Need a Heat Pump, Air Conditioner, Furnace, Boiler or Tankless Water Heater? Or a complete heating system? We install them and all over Skagit county including Mount Vernon WA, Burlington WA, Anacortes, Sedro Woolley, La Conner, Stanwood WA, and on Camano Is.

American Standard 95% Relocate

The American Standard 95% 2-Stage Variable speed is by far my favorite American Standard furnace to install to date. And in this case it was a perfect fit. The original furnace was located under the home… not unusual in homes without garages that have limited space, but I couldn’t understand why it was located under this home.

Furnace/Duct Under Home.

Furnace/Duct Under Home.

Above is a picture of some ducting …behind that ducting is the original furnace. I took this picture so i could get a feel of where I had to connect up to with the new ducting.

New Furnace Location.

New Furnace Location.

Above you can see where I wanted to place the new furnace in the garage, and of course its right where the book shelf is.

New Furnace Overall picture.

New Furnace Overall picture.

Because there was no attic to speak of we ended up doing a sidewall return air inlet into their family room, the supply duct easily went into the crawl space from the garage. We ended up redirecting the existing ducting into a new trunk line.

American Standard 95% 2-stage Variable

American Standard 95% 2-stage Variable

Above is a closer picture of the new furnace in the garage, where furnaces really should end up. We ended up re-using the existing EAC filter, converting it over to a 4″ pleated filter bank. Now this furnace is easy to maintenance and repair if needed. And as you can see, plenty of room to the right for the HWT in the future.
Alpine Heating And Cooling

Need a Heat Pump, Air Conditioner, Furnace, Boiler or Tankless Water Heater? Or a complete heating system? We install them and all over Skagit county including Mount Vernon WA, Burlington WA, Anacortes, Sedro Woolley, La Conner, Stanwood WA, and on Camano Is.

Perhaps one of my favorite installs

OK, I want to clarify the title, the job was not challeging to me as far as skill is concerned by anymeans. I enjoyed this project because it went south and I saved it, let me explain. The customer was in the middle of a remodel and lost her job, at times it appeared she really didn’t know what she wanted, but she really needed a new furnace and her HWT vented correctly. And I admit I almost gave up on this project from the point of sale, but I could see she really needed my help. The installer clashed with her personality causing even more issues. So I decided to redirect my installer to another project and take over. After a few hours on Saturday I have a very happy customer.

Before The Install

Before The Install

Above is a side picture of where the furnace eventually ended up.

Front view before

Front view before

Above is a front picture before the furnace. Keep in mind I really did not know where the furnace would end up when I took these pictures.

New furnace/ HWT moved

New furnace/ HWT moved

As you can see above we moved the HWT over to the right making space for the furnace, re-vented the HWT up through the roof. We installed the new 95% American Standard furnace just under an existing supply duct and rerouted the RA over.
Alpine Heating And Cooling

Need a Heat Pump, Air Conditioner, Furnace, Boiler or Tankless Water Heater? Or a complete heating system? We install them and all over Skagit county including Mount Vernon WA, Burlington WA, Anacortes, Sedro Woolley, La Conner, Stanwood WA, and on Camano Is.

90% to 95% American Standard

There becomes a time in a furnaces life that you need to way the repair cost versus a new furnace.. In this case it was time to replace. We replaced this 90% Trane(American Standard) with a new 95% American Standard.

Older Trane Unit.

Older Trane Unit.

I want to point out in the picture above the Electronic Air Cleaner (EAC), grey thing in the middle. If a service tech where to take out the instructions and actually read how these need to be installed he would be amazed. Almost every EAC I see is installed incorrectly. The air MUST be evenly distributed across the EAC cells and sized for the furnace CFM. In most cases this requires 24″ of straight ducting ahead and behind the EAC.

New 95% furnace

New 95% furnace

In this case the customer would be better served in my opinion with a 4″ pleated installed in the EAC box.
Alpine Heating And Cooling

Need a Heat Pump, Air Conditioner, Furnace, Boiler or Tankless Water Heater? Or a complete heating system? We install them and all over Skagit county including Mount Vernon WA, Burlington WA, Anacortes, Sedro Woolley, La Conner, Stanwood WA, and on Camano Is.

Skagit County Spaghetti piping

Boiler Spaghetti Piping.

At first look this boiler piping could be overwhelming to a service technician, especially someone not use to hydronics. But I have learned and try to teach not to look at the big picture, but rather dissect piece by piece and it will all come together.

 

Cross Pressurization

The initial complaint from the customer was about not having heat and there where issues with their domestic water. My first look at any boiler is the pressure and temperature. I noticed the boiler was running at 75lbs PSI and the PRV was popping off. I then noticed that the PRV was rated for 150 PSI ... not 30. So there was two issues i found right off the bat. I then found both the domestic and hydronic expansion tanks where also faulty. After turning off the feed to the boiler I noticed the PSI would not drop off ... My attention quickly went to the braford white indirect hot water tank. After several tests I found the coil within the tank to be faulty, bleeding high pressure into the boiler.

Conclusion

The domestic indirect tank had a faulty coil, allowing domestic pressure(75lbs) to bleed into the boiler system(30 lbs).  I found the PRV was not only the wrong size but the also was faulty. Tank was replaced under warranty and the PRV was replaced. All working correctly at this Skagit County Spaghetti piping job.

 

97 gary2

Skagit County Spaghetti piping job
Bradford white combi tank

American Standard And Honeywell

Here I swapped out an older RHEEM gas furnace for a new American Standard 80%. This was probably the most common type of furnace changeout up to 2 years ago, now I am seeing more upgrades than anything.

Older RHEEM Gas Furnace

Older RHEEM Gas Furnace

And as you can see we added a Honeywell True Steam 6 gal Humidifier below the new American Standard gas furnace.

New American Standard 80%

New American Standard 80%

By adding the humidifier they will be able to maintain a minimum setting of humidity in the home. This is good for their health as well as energy cost. We also added the Honeywell 4″ pleated filter above.
Alpine Heating And Cooling

Need a Heat Pump, Air Conditioner, Furnace, Boiler or Tankless Water Heater? Or a complete heating system? We install them and all over Skagit county including Mount Vernon WA, Burlington WA, Anacortes, Sedro Woolley, La Conner, Stanwood WA, and on Camano Is.

Carbon Monoxide Page

Carbon Monoxide is by far one of the most dangerous by products produced in the majority of homes by gas appliances. I have decided to built an informational page on CO and have it link over from my furnace maintenance page.

http://www.alpineheat.com/Carbon_Mono.html
Alpine Heating And Cooling

Need a Heat Pump, Air Conditioner, Furnace, Boiler or Tankless Water Heater? Or a complete heating system? We install them and all over Skagit county including Mount Vernon WA, Burlington WA, Anacortes, Sedro Woolley, La Conner, Stanwood WA, and on Camano Is.

New Furnace Maintenance Page

Im slowing building and adding information to my site, I thought it was about time to build a furnace maintenace page, explaining a few things. Its alot of reading … but I feel worth it.

http://www.alpineheat.com/FurnaceMaint.html
Alpine Heating And Cooling

Need a Heat Pump, Air Conditioner, Furnace, Boiler or Tankless Water Heater? Or a complete heating system? We install them and all over Skagit county including Mount Vernon WA, Burlington WA, Anacortes, Sedro Woolley, La Conner, Stanwood WA, and on Camano Is.