Friday, April 3, 2009

Sticker shock and Tanks "owie"

Our furnace in our house is original to the house which is 32 years old. When we bought the house the inspector told us the first thing we should replace should be our furnace. Instead we replaced the floors! lol. Well, I kept hearing about the rebates available on the radio so I thought I would check into it. H O L Y C R A P. They are a bit pricey, we also still just have a swamp cooler so we thought while we're at it we may as well put in central air as well. The amount we keep hearing pretty consistently is anywhere from about $6000 for an 80% efficient furnace and a 13 sir ac unit which wouldn't qualify for the rebates and tax incentives and wouldn't save us a terrible amount to about $8000-$10,000 for a 95% efficient and a 13-18 sir ac unit. We would probably see about $100 a month in savings on our gas bill in the winter with one of those and our power bill would probably go up about $15-$20/mo with the ac over the swamp cooler. WOW, just pocket change, no big deal. *** cough *** That is almost a down payment on a house! So, since our goal is to get out of debt and not add more I think we will stick with our current system and hope it last a few more years so we can save up some money and pay cash later on down the road. The tax credits (read, not guaranteed money in your pocket) of $1500 we wouldn't see (if at all) until next year on our taxes. There is also a $300 rebate from Questar Gas and some of the furnace brands are offering up to $1100 rebates. Still, we're into this a lot of money. To change over the furnace now and put in AC would be like spending a dollar to save a nickle. It just doesn't made sense for us right now.

On a lighter note, Tank scratched his forehead the other day and Cookie decided he needed a band aid to fix it, he looked so cute we had to get a pic of it,enjoy!

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6 comments:

Unknown said...

Ours is getting older too and I have heard the radio ads too. We're nowhere ready to replace ours either. First on my list right now is carpet and new soffit and facia on the exterior of the house. What a cute little baby there and so macho looking with the camo band-aid! LOL!

Lisita said...

He looks so much older than he is, what a cutie!!

Superwoman said...

lsl- lol, thanks! Well, now you know, they are sooo expensive and the tax credit probably won't do much for you if you normally get a rebate anyway. The guy from questar gas that I called told me to go get a digital carbon monoxide detector and if that was showing any carbon monoxide than I probably needed a new furnace, otherwise, while inefficient, ours was still safe and fine and really didn't need to be replaced. The difference between a digital co detector and a regular one is that the regular ones only go off if it gets too high and won't go off if only a little co is coming out of the furnace.

lisita- he really does, people always say, are you sure he's only four months? Yep, I'm sure, he acts age appropriate, he's just very big and alert.

Bob said...

WHAT?!?

That's insane. We had a 94.1% eff gas furnace and a 13 SEER central air unit installed in 2004 for $3800. And it's not an off brand or anything, it's a Lennox. Keep calling and getting prices, and check around with friends, neighbors, etc to find a good contractor. I'm sure it will be more in your area than here, labor is dirt cheap in East Undershirt.

Don't deal with Home Depot or Sears, etc, they just contract it out and mark up the prices.

Superwoman said...

nobody- I wouldn't have believed it unless we had gotten about 9 bids that all came in at the same price. But, sadly, that seems to be the going rate. Like I said, we'll wait a while.

Bob said...

wow, that sucks. Must be that things there are just more expensive, or it's possible the prices have increased, probably due to the cost of metal. I know the price of copper increased to 6X what it was 5 years ago..