Home heating/cooling: Furnaces (natural gas) vs cold climate air source heat pump?

[92redragtop]

Anyone familiar with the going cost to replace a natural gas furnace (installed)? I have to make a decision about our 22 year old Lennox Elite unit (2,000 sq ft 2-storey home).

Anyone replace their furnace in the past 6 months?

Was pointed to "cold climate air source heat pump" option as well while looking into an energy audit but haven't heard about these before so looking them up now.

Anyone switched to one of these systems (Mitsubishi Zuba)?



TIA

[hammerhead]

my suggestion would be to move away from Gas as future plans are to have net zero homes (if you plan on staying in your home) had a furnace propane furnace installed about two years ago to replace the existing oil burner and used existing duct work an it came in between 6-7000 grand for a direct vent furnace - propane/gas - tomato/tamatoe, gas was not an option for me

[Quicksilver]

We switched from oil to a high efficiency propane furnace. The heat is much more even, and infinitely more reliable, but with our dear leader's newfound taxes and price increase, it is no longer cheap. Our oil furnace was costing us upwards of $5000/year in fuel and now the propane is closer to $7000.00.

With what I'm paying for heat and hydro, I could easily afford a new Shelby!

[92redragtop]

Our current furnace is a natural gas unit (supposedly high efficiency at the time) so it's either another newer one like it - one HVAC person I spoke to yesterday said a "good" unit (ie. variable speed, etc) will run about $6K. That was higher than what I thought they were going for ($3K to $3.5K). The air source heat pump units may run around $8K after rebates but there's not as many of them out there. Was going to get an energy audit done anyway and the auditor suggested going away from natural gas now.

[hammerhead]

Our current furnace is a natural gas unit (supposedly high efficiency at the time) so it's either another newer one like it - one HVAC person I spoke to yesterday said a "good" unit (ie. variable speed, etc) will run about $6K. That was higher than what I thought they were going for ($3K to $3.5K). The air source heat pump units may run around $8K after rebates but there's not as many of them out there. Was going to get an energy audit done anyway and the auditor suggested going away from natural gas now.

yes - we installed the variable speed was good at first but like Steve mentioned propane skyrocketed this year - its hard to know which way to go but one thing is for sure if we have to go net zero I think that will really shake up resale value on the home as the more efficient homes will garner the highest market value - it will be a complete package rounding out a sufficient home that wins out in the end not just the HVAC.

[5.4MarkVIII]

I don’t have first hand experience. But I do work in a lot of newer condos that have heat pumps. And my dad with their addition was down the rabbit hole.

The cold weather heat pump is an oxymoron.

Everyone I have seen and every dealer my dad talked to was paired with a massive electric heater to take over when the weather gets cold and the heat pump loses all efficiency.

Also have talked with many people in those condos that have MASSIVE. Electric bills in the winter time.

My dad was adamant that he did not want LP as he also doesn’t have the option of NA

He spent a TON of money on an outdoor pellet boiler that was suppose to also burn corn.

The efficiency is nowhere near what was promised and it struggles to burn corn. He won’t admit it but I think between the rise in corn price having to mix it with wood pellets and the up front cost he is no further ahead than what a new LP furnace would have been. (He still has his old LP furnace as back up.)

IMO. Put in a High efficiency NA, and vote accordingly.

[hammerhead]

I don’t have first hand experience. But I do work in a lot of newer condos that have heat pumps. And my dad with their addition was down the rabbit hole.

The cold weather heat pump is an oxymoron.

Everyone I have seen and every dealer my dad talked to was paired with a massive electric heater to take over when the weather gets cold and the heat pump loses all efficiency.

Okay have talked with many people in those condos that have MASSIVE. Electric bills in the winter time.

My dad was adamant that he did not want LP as he also doesn’t have the option of NA

He spent a TON of money on an outdoor pellet boiler that was suppose to also burn corn.

The efficiency is nowhere near what was promised and it struggles to burn corn. He won’t admit it but I think between the rise in corn price having to mix it with wood pellets and the up front cost he is no further ahead than what a new LP furnace would have been. (He still has his old LP furnace as back up.)

IMO. Put in a High efficiency NA, and vote accordingly.

I had the outdoor furnace like you mentioned but burned wood and it was tied into the the forced air furnace to offset cost and the wood alone struggled to keep the house at 60 —the heat pump is the same i think it is to off-set cost —personally I'm not a fan of the heat pumps and the geo thermal stuff and will concentrate on electric appliance heat combined with a solar system maybe wind since I'm in that zone and a ton of insulation...I don't think the combined system save squat and was a ton off extra work and that's why I chose lp

the propane with variable speed did make a very noticeable difference on my electric bill to run the fan

[Scott]

We had a 2nd tier furnace (Payne) installed in our cottage in Nov 2020.

Furnace $3829
A/C $3500
Duct Design $500
Duct Work $3800 (basement ceiling unfinished so pretty much straight forward)
Propane Conversion $190

And then of course the cost of propane goes through the roof!

[ChickenLips]

I'm pretty sure you can get high efficiency wood boilers that are also capable of burning gas. This assumes radiant heat

https://www.woodheating.ca/

[92redragtop]

I spoke with someone at work who installed a new NG high efficiency furnace just before the pandemic and was $5K so now would probably be around ~$6K with new PVC, etc installed (they have similar size house in Richmond Hill). I think my NG bill is about $1200/year and the hybrid heat pump option is supposed to reduce that significantly as the hybrid backup NG heating would only be used when temps go below -30C (so I'm guessing more like -25C in reality), and eliminates the AC which the heat pump also does in the summer. We still need NG for the water heater and fireplace so that limits gas bill reduction. So far they are saying the price difference I'm seeing is approx. $2K between NG furnace and hybrid heat pump system.

Hard to tell how reliable they are versus a good NG furnace system (although I think the newer NG furnaces are not built the same way/quality wise the older units were).

The wood systems are interesting but sounds like more maintenance required with pellets, etc.

[92redragtop]

yes - we installed the variable speed was good at first but like Steve mentioned propane skyrocketed this year - its hard to know which way to go but one thing is for sure if we have to go net zero I think that will really shake up resale value on the home as the more efficient homes will garner the highest market value - it will be a complete package rounding out a sufficient home that wins out in the end not just the HVAC.

Yes, the rebates to upgrade to heat pump and move away from primarily NG are significant right now versus straight NG furnace replacement (some of that is due to low volume and higher unit pricing on the heat pump systems) but as NG prices go up over the coming years then that value equation you noted should even out or invert.

[5.4MarkVIII]

Keep in mind with a heat pump you are using refrigerant, pretty much all of which have been labeled as a green house gas by our government and are in various stages of being phased out.

Find out what they are using and what will be used if repairs are required if a few years. and how that will effect the service life and efficacy.

[92redragtop]

Keep in mind with a heat pump you are using refrigerant, pretty much all of which have been labeled as a green house gas by our government and are in various stages of being phased out.

Find out what they are using and what will be used if repairs are required if a few years. and how that will effect the service life and efficacy.

That's a fair point about the refrigerant being GHG but I guess they're pushing it since the system itself does not need to burn additional fuel although in our climate it does need backup support to kick in during the couple weeks where we get extreme temps (can be gas or electrical). And the central air systems already use refrigerant so these systems replace that. The system is more expensive than an NG furnace though so it comes down to whether the annual savings offset the difference and the reliability.

[Ontariomystic]

You will not get the same reliability out of a heat pump that you get with a NG furnace. Also heat pumps are way more expensive to repair. The push from the government to move away from fossil fuels is only going to backfire when the costs to upgrade the grid between electric cars charging and home heating going electric gets passed onto the consumer. Just my opinion.

[ChickenLips]

anything that moves towards independence from outside services. IMO wood boiler beats electric, gas, oil, heat pump etc. Energy isn't getting cheaper.