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am (Laurie Forbes) wrote in news:4061c458.593007
@news.spots.ab.ca:

On Tue, 23 Mar 2004 22:28:03 -0800, Larry Jaques
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Mar 2004 23:19:54 GMT, am (Laurie Forbes)
brought forth from the murky depths:

A friend is purchasing a new furnace and is leaning towards the Lennox
G60 (medium effic., 2 stage heat). She has heard however that Lennox
reliability has declined over the past few years and is therefore not
recommended.

I would appreciate comments anyone may have on Lennox and suggestions
for perhaps something better (& available in Canada).

I just went through that 2 years ago and settled on a Carrier
Weathermaker, a 96% efficient model with a lower-cost A/C unit.
The blower is a low-cost-to-operate variable-speed DC unit
which is so much quieter than my old low-efficiency CA model.
I don't recall what make that was.

I have a high efficiency furnace myself - started with a Carrier but
had to send it back because of a noisy draft inducer.

I looked at Trane (my second choice), ....

A Trane is what I tried next - draft inducer noise still bugs me
sometimes but it was not as bad as the Carrier (its the variable speed
aspect of it that seems to create reasonances and buzzes). The blower
motor (constant speed type) is quite quiet however.

They're quite an assembly of sheetmetal, I tell ya. It blew
me away when I saw him using PVC pipe for the gas furnace
chimney. Air out of the unit isn't much over 100°F!

They're pretty impressive alright - the "chimney" hardly feels warm to
the touch.

Laurie Forbes

Although Consumer Reports has historically declined to recommend one
brand of house furnace over another, preferring to emphasize quality of
installation, they did finally decided to recommend Trane furnaces over
others brands as being more likely to give untroubled service over the
long haul.

Based on CR advice, I got several estimates and Lucky Me! the Trane was
the least expensive furnace, given the furnace options and installation
requirements that I had. It has proven to be a good furnace so far, but
I've only had it for a year, so that's not really a good trial. One very
good thing is that Trane dealers will do a heat-flow analysis on your
house as part of the estimate, actually measuring your windows and
performing the appropriate calculations, unlike the other dealers who
just made educated guesses (although they were close on their estimates
to the Trane calcs). My only regret now is that with rapidly rising gas
prices I didn't get the 90% efficient furnace instead of the 80%
efficient. If the Trane lasts as long as it should, I might get burnt by
"penny-wise, pound-fooish".

One important factor in my decision was that one dealer, who almost sold
me, said at the end of our interview that I didn't need a permit from the
County to install the new furnace. Guess what? I called the County and
they said "you sure do need one"! Even though the permit cost some
serious cash, and the furnace inspection was cursory at best, I rest
easier knowing that if for some reason I had a house fire the insurance
company couldn't put the blame back on me for not getting a furnace
install permit, and I won't encounter possible problems with future
remodeling projects or house sale.

--
John Snow
"If I knew what I was doing, I wouldn't be here"