Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

I grew up with folks using a wood stove ,,and I did the same for the begining of my grown up years out on my own ,, I then installed a electric furnace and AC ,,and enjoyed low killwatts per hour for years along with a wood stove too.

This house in Idaho we live in now has a furnace run by gas and electricity for the fan , Soon after moving here I quit using the gas furnace as it only heated the living room The Gas bill was high also ...So,,,,,,,,,I am now thinking of tearing the gas furnace out.. Am I the only one on here that is fed up with a gas furnace .

Please read down a bit where I explain my fireplace that has a metal exhaust that goes out through the wall to the outside .. I did not explain this very well

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

I had a high efficiency gas furnace put in our new house last year. I love ours. I think our bills are going to average around $100/ month.

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

I have a high efficiency gas furnace, two gas dryers, a gas range/oven, and a gas tankless water heater. I love the way natural gas heats, and here in Utah the price is very reasonable.

I also have a gas fireplace, but we haven't used it in years. I do have a wood-burning stove in the basement and a supply of firewood, in case of emergencies.

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

We have a gas furnace and AC with no issues heating the whole place. Maybe there is a problem with the way your ducts run? Seems odd it only heats one zone of your house.

As far as electricity goes our latest bill informed us of upcoming rate hikes, not small either.

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

GOPAPA, living in Idaho what do you use for heat during the winter if you do away with the gas furnace? Seen no mention of electric baseboarda or similar? How old is your gas furnace? We had a new gas furnace and electric 4 ton central unit installed about 6-7 Years ago. High efficiency furnace also with the flue stack exiting thru the roof and is PVC or similar plastic, warm to the touch but not hot at all. VERY pleased and during our Kansas winters our gas bill is $100 or a bit less each month. Also I run a wood burning fireplace which is very efficient. Glass doors, two speed blower unit and uses outside air to feed the firebox. Plumbed ducting under the floor in to our central air ducts. When running it I usually knock down the furnace t-stat setting a few degrees to keep the furnace from coming on. Pour up a Crown Royal and enjoy being retired while adding a log to the fire.

I don't see a time within the foreseeable future that our nation's electric grid will be able to supply the needed electric power that will be required during the winter for heat alone. Much as a few factions don't like the idea, natural gas is still our best alternative for such.

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

The house I live in has electric baseboard heating and propane water heater . It works well if and when I use it . It’s expensive and the grid here is iffy at best . Wish we had natural gas so I heat with wood . My rental has oil fired hot water and heat .

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

I hear good things about a "heat pump".

My sister in law is in the heating/cooling biz and she had one installed in her own home.

I just moved and my new place has a heat pump for moderate weather and an oil fired traditional furnace for when it gets cold.

I can't comment on how that works since we've only been there for about 36 hours.

So far so good, though :lol:

K

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

Attention ! I did not explain myself very at all.. Let me start over, I have a gas furnace with duct work that works fine.. I also have a gas water heater that works fine ,, what I am wanting to maybe just get rid of is the fireplace in the living room that when running only puts out heat and that heat only heats the living room as it does not have ducts to spread any heat to other parts of the house . NOR ....does it have a chimney going out through the roof ,,it has a vented pipe through the exterior wall of my living room

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

A "Fireplace" is the worst efficiency heater there is, almost all of the heat and $ goes right up the chimney.

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

I have a gas furnace and a wood stove. I only use the wood stove. That’s what I grew up with and that’s what I like. You could also look into a wood stove insert for the fire place to blow the heat out instead of just up the chimney. They work pretty good.

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

Get a wood stove or pellet stove insert for the fireplace.
I have baseboard, a old non EPA wood stove and a pellet stove insert.
I can heat cheaper with the baseboard per day than with the pellet stove.
The pellet stove uses a fan to force feed the fire and turn the auger.
The wood stove just cranks out the heat and wood is free or permit fee.
I get mill ends for free in town and Junipers are weeds here.
The wood stove runs 24 7 when I use it and is black out proof.

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

That's an entirely different story. As I mentioned in my post, we have a gas fireplace we haven't used in years. In fact, my other house also has one and I couldn't tell you the last time it was used. I consider gas fireplaces to be for decorative purposes only. If you like looking at flames and you don't want to chop wood or clean up ash, that's the only reason I can think of to have one. My wife's piano is currently in front of our gas fireplace.

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

GOPOPA, okay, now I understand the situation more clearly with "the rest of the story" as the saying goes. Yup, the open gas fireplaces do more for just "the look" than actual heat. If and that's a big IF you like the fireplace I believe I would look into a wood burning insert or stove if you have the room. Pellet stoves have their features but along with everything else it seems the cost of pellets has gone up also. If you have the wood available to you I would think a true wood burner would have the advantage altho there is a bit of clean out and chimney maintenance along with cutting and splitting. With the wood stove you get the added feature of maybe a pot of beans, chili or stew sitting there simmering thru the day. Plus it's a constant coffee cup warmer for those cold days also. :lol:

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

If I didn't use my wood stove my electric bill in the winter would be around 6-700 dollars. I'm on 5 acres so there is plenty of wood to be had. We've gone through 4 cords so far.

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

Ok now I get what you are saying. We also have a gas fireplace and no it doesn’t heat the whole house, but we had no expectations for that.
It does nicely heat the area we want it to though.

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

Sorry about wording my post so terrible.. must be age kicking in.. :) I find myself doing dumb things more than ever .. I live in the city now and my days of wood burning are over. Been over since moving here 12 years ago.. The gas fired furnace I have works good so I have no compaints about it . The fire place looks good and to do away with after thinking would be a lot of money to do so with all the remodel work that it would create.

Always good to run things by you all ..

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

Howdy neighbor!
I'm next door in Meridian.

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

Is it a real fireplace or a zero clearance gas fireplace ? You cannot put a wood stove into a zero clearance fireplace the flue will not handle the heat . We have a gas fireplace it has a flue that is built like a gas water heater but larger . It’s not an insulated pipe . Now if it’s a real fireplace that they put gas logs into it then you should be ok . But you still should have it checked for cracks and or missing mortar.

That being said my gas fireplace has a glass front and puts out nice heat without sucking the air out of the house . We use it when it gets real cold like zero or below

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

A heat pump has efficiency on par with old resistance heaters. Only would recommend use in areas with low electricity rates and somewhat mild climates. They have a low heat rise that uses the same amount of power (more with resistance heat added to increase heat rise) as your A/C unit. The SEER on the A/C side has nothing to do with the heat HSPF rating, do not confuse the two. Heat pumps are no more efficient on the heat side than they were 30 years ago. The Technolgy has not changed. My reference, heat and A/C was my career for over 40 years. Even with the elevated gas prices here in California a gas fired heater will cost less to heat a home here.

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

Everyone I know down here can't wait to get rid of their heat pumps. Very inefficient and typically requires more maintenance and parts replacements than traditional heat/AC systems. My furnace is gas (pretty much always had it except in my real young days we had coal t heat the house and the house at farm. Real fireplaces aren't that efficient in today's standards for heat distrobuton. The fake gas and electric ones seem to be there just for visual rather than real heating.

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I can relate to all you say here Richard.. Back in Oregon where I moved from I had a Heat Pump system and it did not pick up heat at all like the gas furnace I have here in Idaho.. I also had wood heat in Oregon and that was the one I believed in the most to get the house heated up fast.. I also had the wood stove connected to my air flow duct system and I would turn on my heat pump fan and it pushed the hot air through out the house .

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One oddball idea for the fireplace is to seal up the chimney at the outside to keep bugs and birds out and then put a TV in the firebox. When you want a 'fire' just show 'fire on a loop' video. I think there is a site that streams a fire for just such a use. Avoids most of the remodel expense and you still have some of the fireplace ambiance.

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

Thanks Mr Parrot ...Well, now ,I got a couple iders..drag the piano over in front of it or set a tv inside the space with a fire place moving a playing.. I am pretty sure now after sharing these ideas with the wife ,,that she is saying why not leave it as is.. Ok wifey it's your house in side to do with what you want.

For now its on a back burner,, I appreciate all the advice all the same

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

Some of the newer direct vent sealed gas fireplaces with fans are basically just furnaces with a window. They can do a great job heating your space. We have one in the living room. My wife loves ours. Turn it on and run the forced air system fan to distribute heat to the rest of the house. Many years ago I installed an air intake for the forced air system in the living room to aid the heat distribution.

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

Turn it on and run the forced air system fan to distribute heat to the rest of the house.
Richard you do know your heating systems I agree with your thoughts for Southern Cali ,,but this just would not work out well for us in Idaho,,nothing does as good a wood heat,, but not any wood close to us here ,thx for your input all the same .

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I run a propane heater because I can't get natural gas up here. It's expensive but it kinda works. I have a pellet stove in my fireplace and I don't like it. Probably because it's 50 years old and it's busted. I want to convert it back to a wood fireplace but I'm not sure what's involved in that. Like you I have a problem with heat distribution with the propane, some rooms roast and others are cold but I attribute that to the size of my house, it's 2800 sq. ft. and a single story, so it's a really long house. I run propane on one water heater and the other is one of those electric tankless deals. I have no problem with either but I don't use the electric one much because I close off that side of the house because I seldom go over there and want to cut down my bills. But I have to say that the electric is faster than the propane. It's Johnny on the spot. I have swamp coolers to cool the place and they're okay but this house stays cold always which is great for summer but not so much in the winter. My wife wants to put those splitters in different rooms to control what gets heat or cold and what doesn't instead of paying to heat and cool empty rooms. I kind of like that idea. I have little ceiling heaters in the bathrooms which are nice and my pecker doesn't shrivel up when I take a shower. Whoever said little things mean a lot was full of sh!t.

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Not sure if you are speaking about zoning. Cutting off more than 10-20% of flow to other areas can cause problems. The existing system is at best designed to accommodate the maximum flow of the system. When you shut passages off it does not necessarily increase flow to other areas. It just decreases efficiency. The system needs to be designed to allow extra flow into all areas to operate properly with zoning. A complete redesign of the system. I cannot even remember how many improperly installed zone systems that were repaired in my career. Make sure you hire someone that knows what they are doing.

Re: Home gas furnace .. I do not want no more
 

Not sure if you are speaking about zoning. Cutting off more than 10-20% of flow to other areas can cause problems. The existing system is at best designed to accommodate the maximum flow of the system. When you shut passages off it does not necessarily increase flow to other areas. It just decreases efficiency. The system needs to be designed to allow extra flow into all areas to operate properly with zoning. A complete redesign of the system. I cannot even remember how many improperly installed zone systems that were repaired in my career. Make sure you hire someone that knows what they are doing.

Richard,,, in reguards to this what you state

I have our laundry room vent closed for years along with a small bathroom shut down to 1/4 vent and have had no problems so far .. What does this do may I ask have to make repairs to the system .I am not doubting your knowledge just asking for more information .

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A distribution system (ducting) is designed to flow the amount of air the furnace or air handler is designed to output. In my years I have found most are slightly undersized for various reasons. Any time you shut a vent down the air tries to go somewhere else. If the distribution system is already maxed out airflow is reduced when shutting off a vent, not redistributed. The compressor is under higher load, A/C system may freeze up, temp rise is higher on the heat side. System is operating near the safety shutoff levels. A slightly dirty filter may cause a shutdown. Many operate for years not even knowing the system is short cycling or shutting down on the temp limit. Basically, I am saying if you have 10 vents and shut of no more than two you may not have problems. Now shut off five of the ten and there will be problems. The air needs somewhere to go for the system to operate properly. You have been okay, shutting off two smaller vents and the system could tolerate that. Reducing airflow can result in improper operation, higher energy costs and failure. What would driving around with the ebrake applied do to your car? Hope I did not ramble to much. Feel free to pm me for my cell # if you want any more input.
Richard