My last post was about setting up my shop after cleaning it out for new machanicals. Well, the new furnace and water hear were installed and are up and running. My old furnace was original to the house so it was 60 years old. I replaced the water heater fifteen years ago with the cheapest model I could find, so it needed to be updated too. Cleaning up the shop was imperative for the technicians to get the old equipment out and the new ones in, it also forced me to get rid of tools I do not use anymore.
The HVAC company arrived on time the the techs were nice. They went to work on the old furnace which gave them a little resistance, I guess it was happy where it has called home for the past sixty years. They had to cut the old furnace apart to get it to budge. It took a couple of hours but they got it out and by then the water heater was drained and ready to be removed. Seeing the insides of an old furnace was interesting and there was not much to it. The new furnace has two heat exchangers making it 95+ efficient, the old one was about 60 on a good day.
The new furnace was a fraction of the size as old faithful (in twenty years I only replaced a thermopile) and look good in it's new spot. Once the plenums were adapted it looked great.
The water heater was replaced by a power vent model so it did not need the old chimney either. The water heater makes a little more noise than the old standing pilot model that used a natural draft B-vent. One thing I learned about the water heater is the need to drain off the sediment an a regular basis to reduce buildup. The old water theater ran for a long time and the new one just takes a few minutes to recover the hot water after being used. I think it will save money in efficiency as well as not having an opening into the old flue.
It has only been a few days and the furnace has not been needed. That will change this weekend when a cold front comes through necessitating the need to have it on. The water heater has done a nice job and the extra noise has not been a significant distraction while I am in my shop.
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