On Thu, 5 Nov 2009 06:33:09 -0800 (PST), wrote:

On Nov 4, 10:24Â*am, "Bill" wrote:
IMO, You'd have to be nuts to put anyhwere near 50% of the
replacement cost into a 25 year old gas furnace.

It gets a bit complicated with heating and A/C due to more efficient new
models, rebates, etc....

Anyway with things other than that, I've seen some businesses have a policy
of ALWAYS repairing things if the repair cost is less than buying a new one.
One dollar less to repair, they will choose repair!

Which just shows how foolish some business people can be and how much
more money they'd be making if they had some sense.


With the prices of so many "things" dropping,(and the markup, or
"profit" on the sale shrinking even faster,)it is QUITE possible that
fixing things will make more money than replacing in the not so very
distant future - particularly when disposal of the "spent" product is
factored in. We live in a VERY wasteful society.

To me, if the choice is fixing something that has worked well for10 or
more years at a cost of X dollars, and replacing it with something of
unknown (but suspect) quality for 2X dollars, I sure know where MY
money is going.



This makes a lot of financial sense. Take an apartment complex for example.
There may be 100 units. That is 100 refrigerators. Say 10 of these break
each year. And repair costs average 25% of the cost of a new refrigerator.
This policy could save thousands of dollars a year on refrigerator
maintenance ALONE!


I don't think so. You can buy a brand new refrigerator typical of
what you might find in many apartments for $400. Using your example,
I think it's highly unlikely that you're going to find the average
repair cost for a service call on a 25 year old refrigerators is going
to be 25%, which is only $100. That's where all the math breaks
down. And that's even before you factor in ****ed off tenants with
spoiled food, the overhead of the calls they make to management in the
middle of the night, how your apartment looks with a 25 year old unit
compared to others that may have newer appliances and command higher
rent, etc.

In the case of the OP's 25 year old gas furnace, I think most of us
here would agree it could make sense to put a few hundred dollars in
repairs to it under certain circumstances. However, I think very
few would say that it makes sense to put repairs costing anywhere near
half the cost of a new system into it.




Anyway that is the way some businesses decide the repair / replace
question...

On Nov 5, 3:50*pm, wrote:
On Thu, 5 Nov 2009 06:33:09 -0800 (PST), wrote:
On Nov 4, 10:24*am, "Bill" wrote:
IMO, You'd have to be nuts to put anyhwere near 50% of the
replacement cost into a 25 year old gas furnace.

It gets a bit complicated with heating and A/C due to more efficient new
models, rebates, etc....

Anyway with things other than that, I've seen some businesses have a policy
of ALWAYS repairing things if the repair cost is less than buying a new one.
One dollar less to repair, they will choose repair!

Which just shows how foolish some business people can be and how much
more money they'd be making if they had some sense.

With the prices of so many "things" dropping,(and the markup, or
"profit" on the sale shrinking even faster,)it is QUITE possible that
fixing things will make more money than replacing in the not so very
distant future - particularly when disposal of the "spent" product is
factored in. We live in a VERY wasteful society.

To me, if the choice is fixing something that has worked well for10 or
more years at a cost of X dollars, and replacing it with something of
unknown (but suspect) quality for 2X dollars, I sure know where MY
money is going.


Yes, that often factors into my own decision making process - the
unknown quality of a new product. Unfortunately, anymore, it seems
like a lot of the time they "don't build 'em like they used to" and
rebuilding an older product actually results in a better result than
replacing.

Of course, you never know if that is actually the case until you've
bought the new product and discarded the old...

nate

On Thu, 5 Nov 2009 06:33:09 -0800 (PST), wrote:

In the case of the OP's 25 year old gas furnace, I think most of us
here would agree it could make sense to put a few hundred dollars in
repairs to it under certain circumstances. However, I think very
few would say that it makes sense to put repairs costing anywhere near
half the cost of a new system into it.


Hi. OP here. Guess what, the thing seems to be working again.
Perhaps we had a sticky thermostat, or fiddling the works broke loose
some dirt on a sensor, or something. Perhaps I didn't know what a
normal cycle looks like. Perhaps the repair guys didn't, either. I'm
pretty sure it looked like it was misbehaving more, with the front
panel off. Then again, perhaps the repair guy did know, and was
yanking my thermostat from the start.

I also Googled Carrier 58SS and see a lot of similar complaints about
similar age units - with no clear answers. May be a variety of things
that fail, at this age.

Anyway, looks like it doesn't have to be replaced *today*, but I'm
better for the education, and will keep the estimates on file.

J.