So, I was on the fence about whether we should get a new furnace this year or not.
Pros for getting a new one:
- It’s 14 years old.
- There’s a worthwhile tax credit that expires on 12/31/2010.
- How much longer are we going to stay in this house? (Having newer mechanicals is a good selling point.)
- The new one would be more efficient (95% efficiency required to qualify for the tax credit). Efficiency could be very important if the price of LP goes up in the coming years.
Cons against getting a new one:
- Even with the tax credit, it’s a lot of money.
- How much longer are we going to stay in this house? (Why put money into a place when you’re going to leave?)
- We’ve been burning lots of wood for the last several winters, so our furnace has been used less than average and probably has more life left in it than the same furnace in a comparable house where it was the only source of heat.
Like I said, I was on the fence.
We attempted to turn the furnace on for the first time this year on 11/19/2010. It wouldn’t run. I went down and pulled off the air intake pipe, then it ran. A plugged air intake pipe has been the problem several times before.
But during that night, I woke up and I could hear the furnace trying to start but never coming on. I shut it off from the thermostat since I didn’t feel like messing with it in the middle of the night. I thought the air intake might have slipped back into the opening.
The next day, I went down there and the air intake had not slipped back in the opening. Since I am not comfortable pulling a gas furnace apart, I called our local furnace repair service on Monday, and they came out and looked at it. They gave me an estimate of over $400 to repair the old one, and that tilted me over to getting a new furnace. By that afternoon, the new one was installed and we were $3,375 poorer.
$3,375 Invoice Amount
$-150 State Rebate Program
-$1,020 Federal Tax Credit
$2,205 Final Cost
It’s still a lot of money, but I’m glad we did it.
Ending and Beginning 