Experiences with High Efficiency Water Heaters and Furnaces?

[Tinkerer]

 

[w squared]

If you do elect to keep the furnace until it causes you problems, please make sure that you've got good CO detectors - one per occupied floor of the house.

H2O vapour is a by-product of natural gas combustion, and the plenum of a furnace can begin to corrode/crack/leak as it nears the end of it's life, allowing CO to enter your forced air system.

Call me paranoid, but I don't think that it's unreasonable to install a couple of $50 CO monitors. I've certainly spent far more than that on fire extinguishers.

As far as your questions...I don't honestly know. When we replaced our furnace, we just went with the most efficient gas model that our plumbing/heating guy had in his lineup. It was still a $5K touch 

[morerpmfred]

Jan 1st safety codes are changing for hot water tanks and furnaces for new installs and converting over.  I believe they are no more low efficiency replacements they have to be upgraded to mid efficiency or better and for new installs they have to be high effiency.  Sounds like you have mid effiency on your furnace and mid effiency on your hot water tank.(there is a small fan on top of the hot water tank exhaust vent? )
 Up grading you are limited in on the size of your tank by the diameter of the exhaust vent so measure it and check with home despot or a plumber first on what you can upgrade to , unless you want to change the size of the b-vent all the way to the roof.
 If you use the shower like four times a day a load of laundry and the dishwasher every two days or so you want a tank . If you use no hot water for a week then use a hundred gallons in an hour then tank less is more efficient.
  I just Drained and flushed ours, used the garden hose and drained and flushed for over an hour lots of sediment came out and then turned the temperature setting on the tank down two settings cause it was now hotter. Flush and drain it again till it comes out clear.
The  really good hot water solar heaters cost $20,000 for the unit on the roof and with the glycol pumps they can provide heat for up %80 of your home. The problem is you need a heat sink to get rid of excess heat , er  read outside hot tub  
 for the system to work properly

[DGenR8]

Actually it is changing to ONLY high efficiency furnaces for retro-fit or new installs. Mid efficiency have been banned for almost 2 years out east. If a company currently has a mid efficiency in stock they can sell it to you. If they don't have one in stock, they can't order one. (except down-draft types for mobile homes).

[morerpmfred]

Yes you are right none of the high  effiency furnaces vent through the roof. They have plastic exhaust lines and vent out the side of the house. Mid effiency furnaces and hot water tanks have electronic ignition and right above the heat exchanger on the exhaust side there is a little round thing about the size of a turbo and it pulls the exhaust gas out and pushes it up the chimney. On low effiency tanks and furnaces there is a continuous pilot light and no exhaust fan.

[Elsifer]

I am looking at a tankless setup for domestic hot water in my place.
FWIW, nearly "every" retrofit in eastern european homes is a tankless or on-demand hot water heater. Uses only what you need.
In modern apartments or flats, the domestic hot water comes from a heat exchanger that is run by the steam or hot water boiler for heating.

I don't want to spend the money in retrofitting my place for radiant heat. But I'm willing to spend the cash on a better forced warm dirt furnace for heat, and on-demand for domestic hot water. Regardless of the age of my home, where in the city it is, and what my neighbours look like. My house, my money, my choice.

As far as replacing the flue for the tankless heater, I suspect a forced induction setup would allow for the current flue of the hot water tank to be used for the tankless unit. More airflow would allow for the smaller diameter flue to carry that much extra heat.

But that is all in domestic building & plumbing code that I have no idea about.

[BlackYJ]

Hey Pat, I am not sure if you already covered this because there is a lot to read in this thread and I have not read it all.  I recently moved into a new townhouse that has a mid-efficiency furnace.  Now when I had the home inspection done, the home inspector did not recommend going to the high efficiency furnaces because they are about double the cost and you are only boosting your efficiencies a few percent, so it would take a long to to recoup the cost in gas savings

I just wanted to throw that one out there

[nickcoleman9]

So a few years ago i worked for a company do R and D on solar heating systems mostly comercial as they are 50' x 30' collector banks but we also did some work for power pipe a great idea and is a passive system for your standard Hot water tank it preheats the water going into the tank using waste hot water great for family, just something to consider. 
Other places sell it but hey its the first one i found with prices
if you have any questions let me know NICK

http://www.homedepot.ca/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CatalogSearchResultView?langId=-15&storeId=10051&catalogId=10051&N=0&Ntk=level1&Ntt=power-pipe&Nty=1&D=power-pipe&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Dx=mode+matchallpartial&s=true

[Immortal]

The High efficient Furnaces are pricey, and it is your call whether you want to spend that sort of $$ to gain 15%.... HE = 98ish %, Mid efficient is around 83% SEER. To install a HE furnace, or hot water tank, there is a sleeve that is placed inside your existing exhaust flue... not a huge deal to do, and a fresh air duct is installed.... again, not a big deal.
When I go to a tankless hot water heater, I will be using my existing HW tank as a holding tank. City water comes in, gets preheated in the tank (50*F up to 80*F) then the house water will be supplied thru the Tankless unit.
Just more food for thought.
I believe that the Gov't rebate is in effect until February, right?

[DGenR8]

Govt rebate (as long as you have an eco-energy audit) is in effect until March 31, 2011
The tax credit is available until Feb. 2010

[slimbeam]

My house was built in '67 I put in a 95% HE furnace 2 years ago and my heating cost has dropped almost 30% the extra $400 over the 80% efficient furnace was worth it in my mind. an electronic thermostat will help a lot too.   just my 2 cents

[Tinkerer]

Resurrection.

The water heater sprung a pinhole leak on top, so I've called at least one vendor to get their opinion. If I can use the existing vent, great, but if I have to, the heater is in a good place to add a new vent.   I would like a 50 gallon with no pilot and reasonably efficient and able to handle multiple draws at once (we tend to run the dishwasher, front-load washing machine and a bath for our son at the same time), oh and side outlets to possibly use it to run a heat-exchanger furnace or heat a hot tub in the future would be a definite plus. I don't know what brands of heaters and furnaces support that setup, but it would be nice to be prepared to do that.

If someone knows someone who gives fantastic deals, let me know asap.