Furnace and water heater recommendations

[Splaker]

I cant help with the furnace pricing but I just went through the Hot water heater deal.
Mine was rented from Direct Energy at 20$ per month. I bought a Rheem Gas heater at Home Depot for 399$ and paid an installer 259$. So almost 700$ in total. That means that in 3 years I will start seeing the profits of this switch.
Since the last heater was almost 15 years old, that will be 12 years of profits.

If you apply the same logic to your furnace also, then the savings keeps growing.

I can also tell you that my furnace is also a Rheem and I have not had major issues with it. Its very easy to work on and do maintenance myself. I changed an igniter last season and it was a piece of cake.

I am paying 25.99 plus tax ($30) for the WH so $360 per year! Costco has a $300 rebate on now but not sure how this applies... if a WH is only $400 does that mean I get it for $100!?! Doubt it but I will see...

My furnace is $70 with tax per month! So we are rising out $1200 per year on WH and furnace... that's a lot of cash. I am looking into the rebates that are often offered when purchasing these units.

Thanks guys... good info/feedack

[patvetzal]

I used to service electric apartment water heaters and have never lived in a house with gas so hydro was always the way for us. We found that if you removed a rental they charged you for the " unused portion of its lifespan"....about $900, so I would wait for a problem then install my own.
I have been involved with a few tankless units, both gas and electric. Both give scaling problems unless you have really soft water. They also require a uniform load, ok for a couple but no good with a bunch of kids as they will cycle themselves to death, unless you add a storage tank. Ideally you would have one tankless per bathroom/shower...
Now I pick up some excess heat from our Geothermal but next summer I hope to tie into an outdoor wood furnace . Last month out hydro bill was just over $500 before the discount. This was two houses, four adults, two electric water heaters, three chest freezers, three fridges, two water pumps, no oil or gas.....

[mosquito]

thank you very much... do you have a tankless WH?

No, we went over the options and the costs and need were too big a difference.

Just checked "Home Stars" which is a great website that ranks/rates every company under the stars... Rolair got a 7.5 out of 10; not that great as a lot of other companies got over 9. These are independent reviews where homeowners comment and rank their service experience... Cozy World got the best 10/10 and received the best service award 4 out of the last 5 years. They install Lennox products...

As for the tankless v tank water heater, what i am gathering is that the tankless is not worth the extra costs.... for the measly saving of $60 to $80 per year, you're paying 3 or 4 times more up front.. it'll take 20 years to recover your upfront costs. So looks like I am leaning toward traditional tank!

The difference was enough for us that it wasn't going to pay for itself in 10 years or more

Yep, Peel Heating got a higher number rating, the same guys that only wanted to replace the furnace and messed up the fireplace insert so bad it worked once and didn't again until Rolair fixed it correctly and no problems since. Interesting, all the Peel ones are mostly new furnace installations or like this.

"Very disappointed with the service … service person started off by pushing to buy a new furnace right away with out any diagnosis"

"Sunday March 1/15 tech would not travel to get new circuit breaker but ok with leaving disabled seniors in freezing home over night , but ready to replace furnace."

Read the reviews too, Rolair has all 10's except 2 whiners that gave 0's which brings it down. Even they admit he got it working.
https://homestars.com/companies/2227...review_filters

10 stars
Furnace work
Enbridge red-tagged our gas boiler and proposed a new furnace. Rolair inspected and fixed the problem for $90. Two years later, on Christmas eve, the furnace went out and Rolair responded via phone at 8pm, with instructions that fixed the problem.

10 Stars
Furnace and ductwork
I lost my furnace during a massive flood in July. Roely came and assessed the situation and made a recommendation for a small high efficiency furnace that we could put on concrete blocks to get it off the floor to protect it from any future flooding. He and his son-in-law Sebastian did a great installation, and also replaced all of the basement ductwork, adding two new ducts to the upper floor of the house. My house has never been so warm. Better than that, I have even lowered my heat by a full 5 degrees, so the changes I made will pay for themselves within a year or two. Roely is an honest, family man who is highly skillful at his craft (I don't believe the other two negative reviews of him that I saw on this site). He charges fair prices, shows up when he says he will and does a professional job. I trust him completely and wouldn't hesitate to use him again, though I doubt I will need to.

If you want honest answers and a good price.. call Rolair. Feel free to get others to quote but make sure they are offering similar work the others I got quotes from offered lower efficiency and less work (wife wanted sound reduction as much as possible) for more.

My Dad worked as a Union Gas service man for years and I was a summer student with the service dept. so I had a head start, do a bit of research and make sure to ask a few dumb questions that you already know the answer to, some will bs you but one will explain and answer.

[JJL]

We found that if you removed a rental they charged you for the " unused portion of its lifespan"....about $900, so I would wait for a problem then install my own.

we had the opposite result when we moved into our house. previous owners rented the hot water heater, I called to ask them to remove it and they asked if we would take care of it. it wasn't worth anything to them and would cost them more to come get it. I said sure, and we used it for several more years without problem. it was old but not ancient. doesn't hurt to call and ask...

[Splaker]

we had the opposite result when we moved into our house. previous owners rented the hot water heater, I called to ask them to remove it and they asked if we would take care of it. it wasn't worth anything to them and would cost them more to come get it. I said sure, and we used it for several more years without problem. it was old but not ancient. doesn't hurt to call and ask...

Well, I know we can get out of the furnace deal with relatively little pain... we can buy their furnace for a stupid price (like $3800) or have it removed pay an admin fee (about $100) then buy a new one and we are free of a rental contract.. I would never pay $3,800 for a furnace that is already nearly 4 years old. My folks paid $3000 for their furnace and they lived in a 3200 sqft home. Seemed to work just fine. Their installer has since moved west for family reasons otherwise I would have called him.

I still can't get over why anyone would rent a furnace.. we still have to change out filters and to basic maintenance. That's close to $8,500 after 10 years assuming there's no price increase. Crazy... A good furnace should last 15 + years I would think...

[patvetzal]

Unless I was planning to sell the house in the near future I would not rent a furnace or water heater, given a choice. There is a rea$on why they like you to rent them instead of buying out right...Same with service contracts and extended warranttees

[Splaker]

Unless I was planning to sell the house in the near future I would not rent a furnace or water heater, given a choice. There is a rea$on why they like you to rent them instead of buying out right...Same with service contracts and extended warranttees

Agreed... We didn't want the rental.. We had to assume it when we bought he house... but we can get our of it

[35wailin]

I have a household consisting of two parents and four daughters ranging from 19 to 12. I went with a tankless after we had to rebuild our basement. I had a 60 gallon tank that I was paying rental on. The tankless cost me $2800 installed plus tax. We've never run out of hot water since. I had heard that repairs can be quite expensive, but there is a 5? Year warranty with I think 12 on th coil. I figured out if I get six years out of it before a major repair, I would have paid that in rental fees over that time period and it would make sense to just replace it if necessary.

everyones situation is different, but talk to people who have owned the equipment you ar considering.

[Redsoilreaper]

I've been thinking about a tankless as well. But to buy not rent. Looked at one supplier for rental $25/month for hwt and $40/month for the tankless.

[patvetzal]

In the real world, tankless heaters only work great if you have a uniform load. A smaller load causes cycling and a larger load causes cooler water. Laws of physics that marketing cannot bypass.....
This is why many plumbers are adding storage tanks to them.....