Furnace Advice
 

Hi there,

I hope I can get some advice here. We've recently purchased a 20 yr old house and the furnace isn't in great condition. It's a 1700sq ft bungalow with a 1500 sq ft basement. What sort of price and type of furnace (gas) should we look to get? We're in the eastern GTA. We got caught in our current place as it blew out on the coldest day of the year (at that point) in Feb and we ended up shelling out to Enbridge. Although it's on a rental it works out as about $7500 over the lifetime of the furnace, but I'm sure I can get it much cheaper. I have a couple of guys to call but I'm worried if I install it independently I won't be able to get a maintenance contract in case of issues in the future?

Thanks for any advice!

Re: Furnace Advice
 

Depends which is cheapest there, gas or electric ? Also some provinces offer similar to grants for high efficiency furnaces, someone on here in your area may know more about that.

Re: Furnace Advice
 

Our furnace died during the winter. The house is a little smaller. A new HE furnace was about $4,000 from Home Depot; they organised the claiming of the grant which was a few hundred bucks.

Re: Furnace Advice
 

I used to work in HVAC. I'd recommend going through a contractor referred by a friend. Leave Enbridge out of it. There are contractors out there who can offer you finance if needed. If it's just a furnace you need as in a straight swap, or a re & re, then it's straight forward enough. You just need to make sure you have the right size furnace for the property, the right fuel source and then it needs to fit your duct work. I've swapped them out for as little as $4500 with AC depending on the install. Every home is different, and you can almost guarantee that without a site inspection the job will end up costing you more than you anticipate. When financing with customers I always asked if they wanted to change the size of their gas line from the meter to accommodate extra appliances further down the road. It makes sense if you want to add an on demand hot water heater or a BBQ later etc. Any decent contractor worth their salt will maintain and service your furnace/air conditioner. Yes they will probably charge you once or twice a year to clean it and do safety checks. Yes they will charge you to repair it, probably a service call plus parts and labour to repair it. Will they hose you like Enbridge, hopefully not.

That's, kind of, the nuts and bolts of it for me really.

Re: Furnace Advice
 

Enbridge may not be the best company to deal with but the one to avoid at all costs is Direct Energy.

Re: Furnace Advice
 

Agreed. Total soakers.