This week we replaced the Air Conditioning, Furnace, and Water Heater - yes all three only three and a half months into owning the house.
It got really hot a couple weeks ago and we turned the air conditioning on for the first time and guess what - it didn’t work. We had a heating and cooling guy come take a look at it and he confirmed that it was in fact broken and fixing it would be expensive and might not fix the problem and we would have to replace the unit at that point anyway. With that knowledge and the knowledge that our unit was old and likely on its last leg anyway we opted to get it replaced.
Now how does a AC replacement turn into a AC, Furnace, and Water Heater replacement? Well two ways. First, our furnace, while it worked fine for the month we used it, was older than the AC and likely on its last leg as well. We could wait to replace it when it died (and we plan to be in this house for a while so would see its death) or replace it now when it was less expensive to do with the AC/Furnace combo. We also opted to go with a high efficiency furnace to lower our energy use and utility bill. Then second, we were only getting one hot shower (about 20 min worth of hot water) at a time. I guess that is not what we should have been getting. It was irritating but we were dealing with it. Since we were already taking all the parts out downstairs in the utility room, it was the perfect time to get the water heater replaced as well in the hopes of getting more than one hot shower.
As you can imagine, all these changes add up and our bill was quite expensive which made me sad, but I just kept telling myself that doing this now will allow us to enjoy those changes for the entire time we are living there instead of having to do it right before we move to sell the house.
Because pictures of utility rooms and equipment are so exciting I have some to share with you! :)
Here are pictures of the old equipment.
It got really hot a couple weeks ago and we turned the air conditioning on for the first time and guess what - it didn’t work. We had a heating and cooling guy come take a look at it and he confirmed that it was in fact broken and fixing it would be expensive and might not fix the problem and we would have to replace the unit at that point anyway. With that knowledge and the knowledge that our unit was old and likely on its last leg anyway we opted to get it replaced.
Now how does a AC replacement turn into a AC, Furnace, and Water Heater replacement? Well two ways. First, our furnace, while it worked fine for the month we used it, was older than the AC and likely on its last leg as well. We could wait to replace it when it died (and we plan to be in this house for a while so would see its death) or replace it now when it was less expensive to do with the AC/Furnace combo. We also opted to go with a high efficiency furnace to lower our energy use and utility bill. Then second, we were only getting one hot shower (about 20 min worth of hot water) at a time. I guess that is not what we should have been getting. It was irritating but we were dealing with it. Since we were already taking all the parts out downstairs in the utility room, it was the perfect time to get the water heater replaced as well in the hopes of getting more than one hot shower.
As you can imagine, all these changes add up and our bill was quite expensive which made me sad, but I just kept telling myself that doing this now will allow us to enjoy those changes for the entire time we are living there instead of having to do it right before we move to sell the house.
Because pictures of utility rooms and equipment are so exciting I have some to share with you! :)
Here are pictures of the old equipment.
The instillation guys arrived at our house at 8am and it took them until about 5:30pm to get all the pieces installed and working. We did run into one issue with where they were going to vent out but they figured it out and ended up venting through our garage in an inconspicuous place.
The only in process pictures I have is where they replaced the wall control in our upstairs hallway because I had them leave the old box off so I could paint around it.
The only in process pictures I have is where they replaced the wall control in our upstairs hallway because I had them leave the old box off so I could paint around it.
Now on to picture of our new AC, Furnace, and Water Heater!
(Get excited!!!)
(Get excited!!!)
This is the only part I don’t like so far.
To drain the AC they had to run a pipe across our walk way. I am not the most graceful person and can see tripping over this on my way to the washer/dryer while holding a big basket full of clothes.
We are now looking into what we can do to ramp this or make it less of a tripping hazard.