making a furnace more efficient?

Question

My brother has an oil burning hot water baseboard furnace. What are some ways to make it mor efficient? The heating bills last winter were out of control and it really wasent even that cold also he only keep its about 68 degrees in his house. Im helping him out with it because i know more about HVAC then he does. So far ive rebuilt the furnace, new gaskets, fuel enjector, new water pump, mostly all new copper pipes (insulated), new expansion tank and a couple other things i cant think of. What else can i do? The bill is incrediably high. The house is about 2500sq feet. Also the furnace says its only 9% effeciant. Any help would be great!!

Answer 1

If the furnace has only 9% efficiency, replace it. Current furnaces are at least 80% efficient, some claim as high as 94%, but his is in a controlled laboratory. They gain efficiency by running the flue gases through more turns to extract as much heat from the burned fuel prior to exhausting. The gases have so much heat extracted that the waste condenses into liquid water and CO2 gas.

Newer oil burners can also burn bio-diesel fuel.

Answer 2

You definitely have some leverage here. First of all you need to figure out how much extra this is going to cost you. To do this, you need to back your summer time heating cost from your winter time heating cost using the bills from at least the last 12 months. If you can get a good handle on the bill during June, July, August, you should be able to come up with an average cost without heat. Back that amount out for all 12 months and assume that the remainder is the cost of heat. I think you can probably assume that your old furnace was 80% efficient, at least for the purpose of this calculation. If you then multiply that figure by 0.112 you will get your savings with 90% efficiency. (You save slightly more than 10%. I won't go into the details of the calc that shows that.) That will give you your savings per year. Personally I'd multiply that by 10 for a 10 year payout, and then provide escallation of 5% per year, which may be an underestimate, but it's anyone's guess. So savings would be as follows: Year 1 savings= (savings/Yr)*1.05 Year 2 savings= (savings/Yr)*1.05*1.05 Year 3 savings= (savings/Yr)*1.05*1.05*1.05 and so on until year 10 This would than give you a feel for your loss for 10 years. I tossed this into a spreadsheet and came up with the following: Yearly_____ Savings _____ 10 Yr Savings Cost _____ 1st yr 1000 _____ 112_____ 1479 800 _____ 90 _____ 1183 600 _____ 67 _____ 887 400 _____ 45 _____ 592 200 _____ 22 _____ 295 (This Yahoo thing apparently doesn't like tabular formats, sorry for the dashes.) This would suggest that if your yearly heating cost is under $550 or so you could be better off with the $800. Remember that this is all calculated on a 10 year payback. There is one other factor, if you are thinking of selling your house at any time in the next 10 years of so, being able to advertize a 90% efficient furnace may be worth money also, perhaps even more than $800 all by itself. (In Minnesota a 90% efficiency furnace is worth mentioning and worth money when selling a house. In California a 14SEER AC is probably worth advertizing. Don't know about heating units in California.) You could potentially tack the $800 on to any of the above figures that apply and go for that amount from the company that installed the wrong one with an actual basis for your demand.

Answer 3

Truth is if the furnace is less than 70% it is not even worth the effort.... just get a newer one .. ... that is the wisest use of your money & effort.