Once again I find myself replacing another Rheem furnace, this Rheem furnace was getting to costly to repair so my customer elected to upgrade to an American Standard 95% variable 2 speed furnace.
Going from an 80% furnace to a high efficient 95% furnace requires some modifications to the system. Primarily running a new PVC vent system and adding a drain system.
95% American Standard Variable Speed 2 stage
In this case the furnace was in the garage so running the PVC vent was pretty easy as well was the condensate drain line.
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 Lennox 80% gas furnace has seen it last day, its time for a serious upgrade to an American Standard 95% 2 stage variable speed furnace. My favorite furnace to install.
Older Lennox 80% Furnace
After meeting with my customer it was decided to install the new American Standard furnace 90 degrees. This would give the owner more room and make it easier for servicing down the road.
New American Standard 95% 2 stage variable speed furnace
As you can see above by turning the furnace and sliding it to the left it really cleaned up the space. I had to modify the existing return air ducting to accept a new filter system, fab/install a new supply transition and add a condensate pump to the system because there was no floor drain available.
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 farm house 80% gas furnace has seen better days, pure and simply my customer is lucky to be alive after seeing the crack in this heat exchanger. Fortunately for them the older home has a lot of infiltration which allowed for good ventilation.
Older 80% Furnace Cracked Exchangers
The furnace above is not a uncommon sight for technicians in Skagit County. The older farm house’s that did not have basements eventually had furnaces installed in closets within the home. This one is accessed from the living room.
Crack in 80% gas furnace
As you can see above the crack is pretty obvious, and from the coloring you can tell this was a serious hot spot on the exchanger. Causing a lot of stretching and expanding as it operated, until it eventually caused a serious crack.
New American Standard 80% Gas Furnace.
The new American Standard 80% single stage furnace fit right into place. For this customer a simple 80% to 80% change out is all they where after. It really does not get any simpler than this.
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 90% Whirpool furnace has seen its last days. It has actually been dead for some time now, the owner finally decided to install a new American Standard 95% Standard furnace.
Old Whirlpool furnace
This Whirpool furnace had an option of 2 different BTU inputs, something I have never seen before. But being a 90% furnace its was very easy to swap over to an 95% American Standard.
New American standard 95% furnace
The American Standard 95% 2 stage variable furnace is by far my favorite furnace to install. I know exactly what to expect from this furnace and I have had zero factory issues with this model. Outside of making a few sheet metal transitions this American Standard standard 95% furnace was very easy to install as well. And like the 2 stage variable … no factory issues.
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 customer of mine had a Trane 90% furnace that was zoned. 1 Zone for up stairs and 1 for down stairs. It appears the system was designed correctly, but after digging deeper into the system we found it was not installed correctly. The poor installation contributed to the failure of the furnace.
After several conversations with my customer we had decided to move the furnace location and remove the zoning all together. Each floor would have its own American Standard 95% 2 stage variable speed furnace and duct system. In my opinion this should have been done to begin with.
Trane 90% furnace 2nd
The existing furnaces secondary heat exchanger was getting clogged and also was showing signs of external condensation on the heat exchanger. During the installation I found out why.
Existing Return System.
In the picture above your actually seeing into the return air system, its not uncommon to use chases or voids for return ducting. It is uncommon but not rare though for the return air to be blocked by insulation. During construction an insulator had no idea he was blocking the return by insulating the interior wall. By doing so all of the return air was being pulled from outside, during the winter this cold air would cause condensation on the heat exchangers and cause outrages heating bills.
New Furnace Location.
The new location had to be dug down to allow for the 2 new American Standard 95% furnaces. Above you see the area before we started.
Future Location
It was decided to add a block wall to help clean up the area and hold the soil back.
New American Standard furnaces in place
As you can see the new American Standard furnaces where placed on cladlite pads, ducting was divided from up stairs and down stairs then connected to the appropriate furnace. Honeywell 4″ pleated filters where used for filtering.
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.
Another 30 year old furnace that should have been replaced 10 years ago, it took a home inspector and a new home owner to get this monster replaced.
Old 80% Ruud furnace
As you can see the Ruud furnace was tucked away in a closet, the combustion air was pulled through louver doors from with in the home. This is very typical in older homes.
The new American Standard 95% 2 stage variable speed furnace
The American Standard 95% 2 stage variable speed furnace slipped right into place. Because the home owner wanted a better filter system (Honeywell 4″ filter bank) I had to make a slight transition to adapt to the existing supply ducting.
Sun-Pure UV light
A new Sun-Pure photo catalytic ultraviolet disinfection light was added because one of the family members was suffering from allergies. Sun-Pure in my opinion and my customers is a very good product that really does what they say it does.
By running the optional 2nd PVC pipe out (combustion air) we eliminated the need for the louver door, so the customer if need be can replace the louver door with a solid door.
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 Rheem 90% furnace is 30 plus years old and very tired, my customer knows its a money pit and wants an upgrade.
30 year old Rheem furnace
Even though you can not see the difference in the size the older furnace was 3″ wider and 6″ shorter, in my opinion to utilize the existing electronic air cleaner better they should have tried to matched up to it. Instead they overhung the air cleaner. Fortunately the American Standard 95% variable 2 stage matched up perfectly. I still had to make a few transitions to adapt to the existing supply air.
95% American Standard 2 stage variable speed
We have been out on several occasions for various reasons for this customer, one of which was their Navien Cr-210a installed by another company had issues. One of those issues was the venting.
Navien 98% tankless heater
As you can see above there was way to much thought going into installing the venting for the Navien. Too many elbows can cause excessive restriction in the venting, resulting in lockouts as well as overheating.
Corrected Navien venting
After a few changes in the venting I was able to eliminate 4 90 degree elbows. Now the Navien can breath a little easier.
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.
Many years ago I install tons of Lennox Pulse furnaces, and I absolutely hated them. Not only were extremely heavy, they were extremely loud. The very first thing out of the customers mouth was “wow this furnace is noisy”.
Lennox Pulse Furnace
The nice thing about Lennox pulse furnaces is replacing them. The American Standard 95% Variable 2-Stage is a little shorter making it easier to retro fit in … and the American Standard is VERY quiet compared to the Lennox.
New 95% 2 Stage Variable American Standard
As you can tell the American Standard 95% 2 stage variable fit right into place with a few minor duct changes. Because our customer was complaining about a musty smell in their home as well as concerns over filtration we installed a F300 Honeywell Electronic Air Cleaner as well as a Sun-Pure UV light system. I also added a low wall return duct to help pull cold air off the floor.
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.