Furnace replacement

May 30 and 31st, 2017 I replaced the furnace so that Trees House once again has central heat. I have been without central heat since September 3, 2015 because I didn't want to choose a system without regard for the total remodel. Instead, I've used an array of electric heaters and paid a premium for 21 months of this stupidity. (It's hard to say exactly, because I wasted a lot of electricity on the leaking water heater for the first few months of 2017.)

The new furnace, a Lennox EL296UH070V36B-62W88, is much smaller and 96% efficient.

I chose Ballard Natural Gas for the installation. I paid $466.75 extra to have the ducts cleaned. They did a cursory job, and I plan to complain. Cody spent exactly an hour hooking up a vacuum hose and spritzing compressed air in one or two vents.

Jack followed a half-hour later and worked 8:30 to 4:20 that first day. I didn't see him take a lunch break. He was back the next day and worked 8:30 to 6:30, alone. About 10am on 5/30, Garrett showed up with the new furnace. Other than that, Jack did the whole job. The Plumbing Inspector visited on 5/31 at 10:35 and seemed to know Jack. About 5:30pm on 5/31, the new furnace started producing heat.

Cody hooked up the vacuum and spent an hour supposedly cleaning my ducts.

The total cost, $7,297.16, is payable on an interest-free 12-month loan from Wells Fargo. I figure it looks good on my credit report to pay $609 twelve times. I'm due a $350 rebate from Puget Sound Energy for installing an Energy Star furnace and $175 from Lennox, making the actual cost $6,772.16. That cost includes an Angie's List discount of $150. Not for nothing, Seattle gets $669 in sales tax out of this.

Jack wrestled the oil furnace out, brought the new furnace down and unboxed it.

By the way, the vent in BR2 was apparently return air, and Mr. Leddusire hacked the ductwork in order to heat his greenhouse. Jack was perplexed, but the bottom line seems to be that the vent is no longer connected, so we'll close it up.

The old furnace still had years of life, but there is no market for used oil heaters, apparently. Sooty old thing, anyway.

Mr. Leddusire hacked a hole in the wall to let heat escape into his greenhouse. Uh...no.

Jack installed new ductwork from the ceiling down and positioned the new furnace with the service access facing west (estimator Geoff Wood's idea). Ductwork on the right is the return.

The nearly finished installation. Apparently, the return duct didn't fit, so Jack improvised with a rubber adapter (upper right).

Jack solved the greenhouse heat vent issue very cleanly. The black line is for condensate and the plastic cover hides the vent and the makeup air intake.

I wish Jack had aligned his pipes better. The gas meter out front is on an angle now because of Jack's plumbing, and he sprayed his black pipe gray, but it's the wrong shade. The PVC pipes at the furnace aren't parallel. Oh, well.

The new Lennox iComfort thermostat seems fine. It is programmable and uses WiFi to communicate with the app on my phone. Unlike a Nest, it doesn't learn from me, but I think I can program it once and forget it.

The newly retired army of heaters.

Ballard Natural Gas Service
4758 Ballard Avenue NW
Seattle, WA 98107
206-784-8101

Sales rep: Geoff Wood