I wish I could have responded sooner, but one of my customers found out their furnace needed to be replaced the day before Christmas. Unfortunately I could not get a furnace until the following Monday, leaving them to rely on their wood stove for heat … I rested a little better knowing they had back up heat.
American Standard 95% 2-stage Variable Speed
Now realize I took this picture just as I was ready to leave, once again almost forgetting to take a picture at all … we had already pushed back the tool box and re-hung the bike from the ceiling. As I took the picture I really did know if i would post it or not … but then I thought it would actually show people how close you can snug things up to an American Standard 95% 2 Stage Variable Speed furnace. This furnace draws its combustion air from the top of the unit, limiting the clearance needed in front and on the sides.
I also want to point out the filter door above the unit, some customers like their current filter setup but want easier access to them. I cut in a simple filter access door that allows the customer to access the filter without reaching into the furnace or removing screws.
Need a Heat Pump, Air Conditioner, Furnace, Boiler or Tankless Water Heater? I install them all over Skagit county including Mount Vernon WA, Burlington WA, Anacortes, Sedro Woolley, La Conner, Stanwood WA, and on Camano Is.
Yet another Rheem 80% being replaced with an American Standard 95%. This unit was getting to costly to repair so the owner decided it was time for a new furnace, good choice. I hate seeing good money being spent on bad equipment.
Older Rheem 80% Furnace Location
It was early and cold when we arrived and I had forgotten to snap a “before” picture before we started, but got a picture just after the unit was removed. What reminded me was seeing the poor seal job the previous installer did on the take offs in the base can.
Existing Base Can.
As the picture shows above, there are gaps around the takeoffs and no sealant used, meaning a lot of hot air escaping into the crawl space. Id say about 50% of the base cans look like this when you pull the furnace. VERY wasteful.
New American Standard 95% Variable 2-stage
And above we have the new American Standard 95% Variable Speed 2 Stage gas furnace installed with a new Honeywell F100 4″ Filter bank On top of it. And yes we sealed the takeoffs before setting the new furnace.
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.
Changing a 80% gas furnace out and replacing it with an American Standard 80% can not get any easier … unless you really enjoy adding the Honeywell F100 4″ Pleated filter bank on to the system, then it takes a little longer.
Older Payne unit
Here you see the older Payne 80% gas furnace. This particular age and model are prone to heat exchanger cracks and should be shut down immediately if found.
New American Standard 80%
If you look under the new furnace in the picture above you will see a new piece ducting. This duct is called a base can transition, this transition allows a wider furnace to be installed on a smaller can, some of the older brands where not as wide. And you will also notice the new Honeywell F100 4″ filter bank added above the new furnace.
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.
I installed this Coleman TG9S 95% about 1 year ago, looking at the unit you would think I installed it yesterday. The reason I stopped by was the customer was complaining of odor coming from a return grille. It turned out after checking out the equipment the the filter was ready to be changed.
95% Coleman TG9S
Now in the picture above you will notice the Honeywell F100 4″ pleated filter is located below the furnace not above. Thats because the configuration of this furnace is called a Upflow, most furnaces you see in western Washington are of a Downflow configuration type.
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.
Coleman makes the most economical 95% furnace on the market today…. here I swapped out a Carrier 80%. On this particular install I ran into a unattached return ducting at the ceiling. Drawing in air from the garage is not only a unsafe situation, it can be a costly one.
Older Carrier
What I really hate about the spec market furnaces is the lack of consideration for the filtering. Above you can see the straight duct above the furnace that holds the filters. The customer has to reach through the furnace and up into the ducting to change his filters. How many times do people get cut doing this?
New Coleman TG9S 95%
Now above you see the new Coleman TG9S 95% furnace and you see the new Honeywell F100 4″ filter bank. All the customer has to do is pull the door open and remove his filter. NO CUTS. And he has to do it less often because the 4″ pleat has 4 times the surface area of a standard 1″.
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.
The first thing I noticed about this install and what the home owner pointed out was the massive corrosion on the venting. The garage is vented to the out doors and not insulted at all. This will cause drastic temperatures on the venting and of coarse internal condensation and then corrosion. The furnace seldom kept their house warm and when it did it was very uneven. They simply were tired of this furnace/system all together.
Older RUUD unit
My suggestion was the American Standard 95% 2 stage variable. Allot of homes are almost 100% flexible ducting. This ducting is 6 times more restrictive than standard sheet metal and if not installed correctly can lead to a unbalanced home. The American Standard 2 stage variable can in most cases overcome improper installed ducting, acting like a cruise control in your car when you come up on a hill.
To help out the furnace and home we cut in a new heat run into the front entry, I have no idea why they had no heat run there, but it was needed. We also up sized their family room heat run, it was obvious they needed more heat there as well.
New American Standard 95% 2-stage variable
Above you see the new furnace installed, with these high efficient models they vent with PVC and we do need to run a condensate drain out to a drain line. As you can see we added a new Honeywell 4″ pleated filter bank and inside I replaced their thermostat with a Honeywell 4000. This should make for a much better system.
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.
This customer had a retail store that really did not need a furnace. The store had enough heat being generated from lighting that a furnace was not really needed in the last few years. BUT he felt it was time to replace the furnace that was removed several years ago and in today’s economy you can get a good running high efficient furnace at a good price. The Coleman TG9S 95% fits this application perfectly.
Previous furnace location.
Now your looking at the picture above wondering “Where does it go?” You have to look past the box’s … the space was converted over to storage room after the furnace was removed.
New Coleman 95% Furnace
With a little finesse, a new Coleman 95% furnace and some new return/supply ducting additions the building once again had a reliable heating system.
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.
Again I find myself replacing a Rheem furnace, but with a twist. This customer was a referral, she wanted to make sure that she was being guided correctly by another company. Her complaint was she was smelling raw gas outside of her home, the furnace was running erratic and it was very noisy. The other company stated that the furnace needed a new control board, and keep in mind they just did a maintenance. It took me about 30 seconds to figure out that the burners where not providing a crossover from #1 to #2 burners. This will cause raw gas to be poured into the exchanger then of coarse outside, this will also cause erratic operation. Simply cleaning the burners would have solved this problem! And yes that is part of a maintenance!
After about 5 minutes of run time the furnace went out on a overheat high limit, we have good air flow, all grilles open and a clean filter … so based on the size of the home and the small duct design I determined the 80,000 btu furnace was over sized for the home and ducting.
So after going over several scenarios with my customer she decided it was time for a new furnace, she decided to go with a lower BTU American Standard 95% 2-stage variable speed unit with a Honeywell 4″ pleated filter system. In this home we would seldom see the 2nd stage kick in unless needed, and with the variable speed blower the furnace would operate much quieter and more efficient. And by down sizing we would help maintain a setpoint and not overshoot the thermostat.
Older Rheem Unit
Here we see the older Rheem unit, after looking deeper you could see where water was leaking from the inducer connection dripping down on the #1 and #2 burners, causing corrosion. This is typical of this model of Rheem. Again a simple maintenance would have solved this.
Existing Base Can Before.
Now after we removed the older Rheem furnace I found out what was contributing to the over heating of the furnace. The Rheem was incorrectly installed, the base can hole was cutting off air flow. Now I have known a lot of installers in my time, MOST would have just re-installed the new furnace and called it good. Especially how we are down sizing. I try to look at as if it where my home … so I decided to enlarge the opening just to be safe.
Modified base can.
Here you see I modified the base can to allow all the airflow to enter the supply ducting, this way I’m sure we will end the over heating issues and make for a better system.
New American Standard 95% Furnace
The new American Standard 95% 2 Stage Variable speed gas furnace installed correctly over a modified base can. After running the system it was much quieter and it did not blast us out of the home.
New Honeywell filter system
And of coarse I should not forget a picture of the 4″ pleated filter bank by Honeywell … A MUST!
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.