It is unfortunate that our electricity costs have quadrupled in the last 10 years and electricity is becoming unaffordable. Upgrading to high efficiency equipment is no longer a luxury to save electricity, without high efficiency, I know many people who simply cannot afford to heat and cool their homes. Please see this article from the Toronto Sun on the latest rate increase.
Power to the people comes with an ever steeper price.
Have you been thinking about replacing your furnace, AC or water tank but it is just too expensive? Rental is out of the question due to the predatory interest rates that are being charged by the rental companies. Even financing can be costly. Well I have good news for you. The City of Toronto is offering homeowners and building owners very low interest rates for upgrades to your heating and domestic hot water systems. You can get a 10 year commitment at 3.75%. This is simply unbeatable. Chances are if you take advantage of this offer, you will save more on your utility bills than what your payments will be so you will be increasing your cashflow from day 1.
As the summer is approaching and our hydro rates have drastically increased since last summer, most people will be shocked by their hydro bills this summer. You can protect yourself from this hit to your wallet.
Feel free to contact me to see how we can help you take advantage of this incredible offer.
Hello Friends,
Whenever I am asked to provide pricing for a replacement furnace or air conditioner, we always perform a full analysis of the home including a heat loss/gain report to ensure that our customer gets the best system for their needs. This procedure requires a 2.5 hour visit to the customer’s home. Recently, a customer asked me, “Why do you need so much time? Another contractor gave me a price in 5 minutes! Don’t you know what you are doing?”
I would like to answer this question.
The replacement of your home heating and air conditioning system is a significant investment that will dictate your comfort, efficiency and safety for the next 10 – 20 years. Only with the proper research can you be confident that your system will meet your expectations and satisfy your needs.
Some of the many questions that need to be answered are as follows.
Is your home warm enough?
Does your current system maintain a uniform temperature throughout your home?
Are there rooms that are always too cold or too warm?
Is the air in your home fresh or do you find that your home air is stale and stuffy?
Is your home too dry? Is your furniture and/or hardwood floors cracking?
Is your home too humid? Do you have a mould or condensation problem?
Will the new air system be compatible with the existing duct system and piping system in my home?
Do you have enough hot water?
How will this new system affect my air quality?
How will this new system affect the pressure in your home?
Is your home air clean? Does anyone in your household have breathing issues like asthma and allergies?
Is your existing system oversized and operating inefficiently?
How much heat do you actually need?
How much cooling do you actually need?
As you can see, there are so many issues that must be dealt with in order to make the right equipment selection and to ensure that your selection will work well together with your existing infrastructure.
I have been to so many homes where the client is suffering because the contractor they hired to replace their furnace just offered a quick 5 minute Drive By Quote and failed to properly assess the home and their needs.
Any contractor who makes a proposal with a 5 minute visit will not be able to propose the best system for your budget, comfort, safety and efficiency.
The CMHC Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has published a FREE guide on how to buy a new furnace, boiler and/or air conditioner. You can click here to get to the order page and you can order the printed booklet or electronic copy.
For your interest, I have put a copy of the guide below.
Have you noticed that your home is dry. Do you feel static when you touch things? Do you wake up with a dry mouth? Do you have dry skin?
Do you know that the average boiler will cause about 1,000 cubic feet of outside cold air into your home every hour that it is firing? Think of how much your air is dried out because of this cold outside air. Think of how much it is costing you to heat this air. With a direct vent boiler, all combustion air is drawn from outside directly into your boiler so it will not waste energy and not dry out your home. So..if your home is too dry and you have a conventional boiler, think about replacing it now.
This article is the final in this series of how to select a replacement boiler. The conclusion is that it makes sense to invest in a Direct Vent Condensing Boiler. Make sure that your contractor knows which boilers have low pressure drop throught the heat exchanger and which boilers do not require an annual heat exchanger flush. If they do not have these answers, they have not done their homework and you should not buy from them. If you would like to know brands and models of boilers that have the right features for you, please just comment on this blog and I will answer you. You can also call me at my office at 416-781-1054 ext. 23. or email me at joe@premi-air.ca.
The second disadvantage of most Direct Vent Condensing Boilers is their restrictive heat exchangers. Not all DVCB have this disadvantage however so you must make sure to ask your contractor about this. Let’s say that you have a 3,000 square foot home with an 80,000 BTUH boiler. You would probably need about 8-10 GPM or 8-10 gallons of water passing through your boiler per minute. Most boilers would have a pressure drop through your boiler of 8 feet of head. The best boilers have a pressure drop as low as 5 feet of head. This means that with the right boiler your pump will work half as hard. Pumping water around your house uses quite a bit of electricity. With a non restrictive heat exchanger, you will be able to keep this cost to a minimum.
Make sure that your contractor understands pump and boiler flow curves so that your system will be designed to run as efficiently as possible.
The Direct Vent Condensing Boiler is the best choice for any home. However, you must be careful when selecting the right boiler for you.
In order to successfully transfer the heat from the flame to the water as easily as possible, the vast majority of condensing boilers force the water through a very restrictive heat exchanger with many small passages. This can cause 2 very serious problems.
The first problem is that if one of these passages becomes blocked with debris or dirt from the system, the heat exchanger will quickly overheat and fail. A heat exchanger replacement on a high efficiency boiler can be in excess of $2,000. It would be a shame to lose all your fuel savings on a major repair like this. These restrictive heat exchangers require extensive cleaning annually. Since many people neglect to call for service, and many contractors don’t even know about this required cleaning, many people have suffered disappointment and heat exchanger failure. Life doesn’t have to be this complicated. If this boiler is installed with the proper flow design, dirt and air separator and cleaned as per the manufacturers’ instructions, it will last a long time.
In my next post, I will discuss the second problem with these restrictive heat exchangers.
Hi Again, Turndown is the ability of a boiler to reduce its input to match the load. Imagine a home with 3 floors and a separate thermostat and heating zone for each floor. When all three floors require heat, the demand might be 80,000 BTUH. This would require an 80,000 BTUH boiler. If only the basement needed heat, the load might only be 20,000 BTUH. Firing an 80,000 BTUH boiler would be overkill and horribly inefficient. All DVCB have a turndown that allows the boiler to fire at the required rate for that time so the boiler would fire just at the 20,000BTUH that you need. Efficiency is enhanced once again.
Now that it is crystal clear that the best option for a boiler is the DVCB, Direct Vent Condensing Boiler, I would like to discuss the problems with these boilers and how to avoid them.
Today I’d like to discuss the advantage of low temperature operation and how it enhances your energy savings. We have discussed in previous posts that most of the time, your radiators will give you enough heat with water temperatures between 90 Deg. F. and 120 Deg. F. If you have in floor radiant heat, your water only needs to be around 90 degrees all the time. In order to extract the most heat from your gas flame and get really high efficiencies, the water entering the boiler must be as low as possible. 90 Deg. F. water will suck so much more heat out of the flame than 140 Deg. F. water. The problem with most boilers is that such low water temperatures will shock the boiler and cause it to crack and leak. Complete destruction!! The DVCB is designed for low water temperature conditions. As a matter of fact, it works best with low water temperatures since it is able to condense and extract so much more heat from your gas dollars. This compounds your savings.
Today I will illustrate the heating cycle with outdoor reset.
Your thermostat is set for 70 deg. F. The temperature drops to 69 degrees and the boiler fires up. Based on the outside temperature of 50 degrees, your boiler reset controller determines that a water temperature of 100 degrees will provide the right amount of heat. The boiler starts heating your water until it reaches 100 degrees. Your home heats up to 70 degrees and the boiler shuts off, but the temperature doesn’t go up higher because your radiators are only 100 degrees. In order to maintain 70 degrees in your home, tha radiators must stay at 100 degrees so they will never cool down. Rather, they will stay at 100 degrees and maintain your exact set point of 70 degrees in your home. How efficient, How comfortable? As it gets colder outside, your boiler will automatically adjust the water in your system hotter and hotter to meet your exact heating needs. Imagine how comfortable it will feel in your home without temperature fluctuations? Imagine how quiet your system will be without the constant noise of your pipes expanding and contracting as they heat up and cool down. But most of all, imagine how much energy you will save due to this operating efficiency.