Our old furnace was about 40 yo and 4 years ago we replaced it and AC unit with best equipment (best meaning most efficient) $$$ could buy. We've needed a service call every year since and the unit we took out was working perfectly (if not very inefficiently). One of the service calls was dues to condensation inside the furnace housing, dripping down onto a connector and causing some minor corrosion to the gas valve making it not turn on. Did some research on it. No more cold air intake for us. I disconnected that and simply let it inhale room air. Last week had another call. Humidifier not turning on. Me, figuring if it's a bad circuit board I ain't touching it for fear warranty would get turned down. Turned out to be simply a bad connection on the power lead to the solenoid. Yep ANOTHER $75 service call. But, the service tech noted my bypassed cold air intake and told me "smart move". He said when the super high efficiency units first came out, that fresh air went straight into the burner. But, now they simply lead straight into the main cabinet and said they do no good in an older house. Since old houses "breathe". So disconnected it will stay. IDK if I am spending my savings on fuel towards service calls
I doubt it I guess. Old unit was maybe 60-70% eff, 125k BTU non modulating. New one 70K btu, modulating and variable fan speeds. Rarely runs at more than 40% output either. So bottom line I guess it never really needs more than 28K to warm the house. I guess it means every time this furnace kicks on I am saving nearly 100k btu of gas? IDK. The thing works really cool. Neat tech too. IT talks to the internet, the thermostat looks at current and predicted weather, current indoor conditions and requirements, then sets all the parameters. All very interestingThat sort of thing makes me very uncomfortable. What happens if the far end servers are turned off? Okay, make that WHEN the far end servers are turned off. Nobody is going to run those Internet based services forever, they cost real money to make available, and if the revenue stream dries up (nobody buying data, no client based fees, etc.) they will get turned off. Oh, and your connections and data have to be highly protected. One of the rather significant issues is that your thermostat now can tell when you're not home. Yeah, I know.... everybody is gonna say that's a highly overrated risk. I'm not playing the lion game (just have to be mostly successful at hunting,) I'm playing the gazelle game (have to ALWAYS win at keeping away from the lion.) These internet connected features do have some dark sides. TVs. Entertainment in general. Refrigerators. HVAC. And the internet clients are utterly infamous at poorly protected communications.
Any devices like Alexa are flat out banned on my home network. Okay, in truth, yes, smartphones are always listening. My client iPhone does have Siri turned off, and I've stopped using the Google Assistant.
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I am definitely gonna look further into this. Especially since I could use new gutters anywayI'm a little late to the gutter topic and have tried many screens, helmets, etc. My old neighbor had these flip gutters and they worked outstanding.
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