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.
This Arcoaire 80% furnace has seen its last days, the repair costs are getting to be to much for my customer. Time for a upgrade to a reliable furnace.
Older Arcoaire Furnace
In this installation we are looking at an upflow furnace, not your typical NW Washington installation. The supply air is discharged from the top while the return air comes in from the bottom.
New American Standard 95% 2 Stage Variable Upflow
Like any other brand American Standard makes more models of upflow furnaces than downflow furnaces, this is because most of the market does not have crawl spaces. This American Standard 95% 2 stage variable furnace fit right into place. I made a new base can for the furnace to sit on and new transition to reconnect to the supply ducting. I then added a Honeywell 4″ pleated filter system off the basecan. Old vent was removed and we vented the furnace sidewall of the garage.
I know I keep repeating myself … but American Standard IMO is the best furnace you can own. I have sold, serviced and installed them and can tell you I’m very proud to be a dealer!
Alpine Heating And Cooling
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.
Understandably in some areas in NW Washington you will find more brands of furnaces than in others. In some areas of Skagit County you will find more older RHEEM furnaces than any other because in their day they where fairly inexpensive to install.
Older RHEEM 80% Furnace
Honestly I can not tell you how many RHEEM furnaces I have replaced, going on 30 years in the HVAC business I personally may have replaced well over a hundred … and may have contributed to perhaps 500 or more RHEEM replacements overall.
Existing Supply Plenum
And like almost every furnace I remove the supply plenum can looks like the picture above, a trained eye can spot the fact that this is a non-sealed plenum. Back when this furnace was installed new it was code to seal these joints.
New American Standard 2-stage variable speed
After sealing up the existing plenum we installed the new American Standard 95% 2 stage variable speed furnace onto the new base. I fabricated and installed a new return plenum and cut in a easy access filter door. A new PVC vent was ran and a new condensate drain was added to the system.
Alpine Heating And Cooling
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.
If not for a good referral I simply would not have gotten the chance to even bid this project never mind doing the project. This particular customer knew exactly what he wanted and because of my experience I believe that is why he chose Alpine. Referrals make up 80% to 90% of my business and I appreciate everyone I get.
The focus to begin with was not the furnace but his ducting, rats had taken over his crawl space and had severely damaged the flex lines. Unfortunately he had one of those systems that was 100% flexible. After the owner had a clean crawl installed he removed his insulation and ducting and hire Alpine to install a sheet metal trunk line with flexible branch runs. A much better method for air delivery and efficiency. We also installed balance dampers at the take offs for added control.
Older Arcoaire 80%
The older Arcoaire furnace was actually over sized for the home while the added on Trane AC unit was actually undersized. Here you can see even physically it was over sized.
Newer American Standard 2 stage variable speed
American Standard with their 2 stage variable furnace makes it a lot easier to match up to systems like this one. We get the full fan we need for the AC but yet we get the lower BTU that I’m looking for in the 2 stage. Even though I could not match up physically with the unit with the new furnace we where a lot closer to design with the existing AC coil.
Alpine Heating And Cooling
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 PAYNE 90% has the worst clogged secondary heat exchangers I have ever seen. The heat exchangers where so clogged that the flames where burning yellow starving for air and overheating the combustion box … the condensation actually ate through the exchanger. After putting up with headaches and a unusual odor they decided to give us a call. They are lucky to be alive in my opinion.
Older PAYNE 90% Furnace
The PAYNE furnace actually sat up on a air conditioning coil that is about 24″ tall, imagine trying to lift a furnace off and on that coil. Fortunately my customer hung around to help me with the lifting.
American Standard 95% 2 stage variable speed
The new American Standard 95% 2 stage variable speed furnace was physically the same size and slide right into place with very little modifications. After reconnecting up to the venting, gas pipe and drain system I dialed in the propane pressure on the valve. I know I have said this a hundred times in my blog but I’m going to say it again … I really love installing this furnace model of American Standard, I have no issues and it does as promised every time.
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.