If you have an old renovated house and are thinking of replacing your furnace, you may be interested in our experience.
• A month ago, our furnace conked out. It was 13 years old, high efficiency, but a cheap model with a checkered history of repairs. We decided to replace it. We had bought our house barely a year before and we knew that we would have to buy a new one at some point, although it happened more quickly than we thought. During our first winter, we experienced high temperature variation in the house, very hot in the basement and very cold in the upper floors. As a result of the research we did, we discovered that we had inadequate ducting. The house had been expanded and renovated a few times during its 100 year history, but it seems that the duct work was never redesigned properly for a 3000 square foot house (3 floors plus finished basement). In addition, there was only 1 air return on the main floor, for the entire house!
• We asked 4 companies to bid on the installation of a new furnace. Craig from Belyea Brothers was by far the most upfront and most thorough in explaining the best we could aspire too, given the fact that we did not want to rip walls out and redo duct work. He was the only one to tell us that our current furnace capacity was not high enough for the size of the house. We needed a 100K BTUs furnace, not 80K. Unlike others, he did not recommend a more expensive variable speed furnace but a fixed speed one, so that the amount of hot air to the upper floors be maximized when the furnace was on. He also recommended an additional air return in the basement, which could be easily installed without a mess, on the outside wall of the furnace room. After thinking it through and researching the recommended Daikin furnace, we decided to hire Belyea Brothers for the work, even though they were not the cheapest. We also decided to replace the old air conditioner with a new one from the same make.
• As in many older houses, our furnace room was very cramped, so the installation was not easy. The installers, Bryan and Julio were obviously very skilled and did the work efficiently and cleanly over 2 entire days. The existing inflow and outflow pipes were 2 inch and had to be replaced with 3 inch pipes, since they were not large enough for the new furnace to “breath” properly. Therefore, the pipes had to be re-routed. This was done without significant loss of space in the furnace room and no additional cost. Because this was not a “plain vanilla” installation, we asked a lot of questions during the work. We found Bryan and Julio very responsive, detail oriented in their explanations, and unfailingly courteous.
• So far, we are very pleased with our new furnace. There is still some temperature variation but it is minor. The furnace is extremely quiet and, even though we try to pay attention, we can’t hear it. We can’t report on the functioning of the air conditioner yet of course, but if it’s like the furnace, it’ll be a good experience. We have no hesitation in recommending Belyea Brothers, especially to those home owners who face the same sort of problems we did. 10/10