I’m a new member who found this forum trying to search for some info related to this but think I may just need to post this new thread to ask directly... I have a question related to oil burning furnaces which I’d love a bit of insight about - if anyone has general thoughts or opinions they’ll definitely be appreciated.
My home has an older (not quite sure re age but hopefully its design may indicate at least a rough idea good enough for the question) Trane oil furnace I’ll describe as best I can. I’m out-of-state and won’t be back for quite a while so can’t give the model number or other specifics I could see if at the house. It is a very simple unit though... which has a nozzle near the base which sprays oil in to an air-box (fire-box?) where it combusts & creates heat that’s exchanged at the top of the unit where piping comes down into and back up out of the unit through a heat-sink/heat exchanger which heats water to power the home’s baseboard heating. There’s nothing else to it at least visible to me and as explained by the guy who serviced it for me last year. He told me it’d basically last forever and just need cleaning each year, and that the only thing that could ever “go wrong” or need work of some kind would be the spray nozzle which could need replacement should it fail... I love that the furnace is so simple & I understand how it works at least on a basic level.
A relative of mine who has been “house-sitting” for me had a guy from a different company come to clean the furnace... and this guy basically said “he needs a new one...” - I understand the higher efficiencies new furnaces can achieve and that a combustion test of sorts can measure the current unit’s efficiency - as well as the fact its annual efficiency will be a different number... (thank you another thread on HVAC-talk...) but this relative has a history of being “taken for a ride” by people who come to his home to fix something... like for example when a tenant thought a light didn’t work b/c they couldn’t operate the light switch... (I couldn’t make this stuff up... the switch was a dimmer slide with an on-off switch beneath the slider. Apparently this genius had only ever used a dimmer switch of the kind that doesn’t have a switch below the slider and instead clicks on and off when the slider hits the bottom of its track... so they say the ceiling’s light fixture is “broke”) - This relative may have developed a reputation among contractors he gets referrals from that he can be told & sold anything... b/c an electrician is hired to go “fix” the light... They must try the switch & realize the “brains” they were dealing with. The end-result is my relative gets told he’s lucky the place hasn’t burned down and that the home’s entire electrical system needs to be replaced. He was ready to do it. I sent someone over who explained the switch and checked the rest for good measure... there was no problem with the wiring or need for any work whatsoever. I now wonder if the furnace technician turned sales department was told about his nature.
I got a picture of the furnace this guy tried to sell him... and I want to get an idea of how egregious this was and/or whether there is a legitimate argument to replace the older Trane due to its efficiency, at least in theory. The new unit is of a lower quality brand than Trane is known to be at least from my impressions of Trane, but I don’t know the newer one’s manufacturer & it’s not clear from the picture. My basic question is re something similar to why I like my 2006 car more than any the same car’s newer models, which in 2007 switched from an inline six to a twin turbo 4 cylinder with alongside the idle engine on/off are extra parts which add to an engine’s efficiency... but at the expense of having a lot more parts to break and replace over time. This new furnace looks a bit like an old mainframe computer... with LCD screens on its front and a “black-box” look to it rather than a simple design like the Trane where I can flap open the “burn-box,” see the oil spray nozzle, and see the single pipe that loops through the top of the unit to heat the system’s water. This newer one has pipes coming in and out of it all over the place like a mini oil refinery...
Thank you for reading what I let become a long question... I wanted to include the “broken” light part for context but had to b/c of how funny/ridiculous it is... I’m just so curious now regardless of whether the guy was trying to rip off my relative (or rather me indirectly) or not... So is a nice and simple older Trane that’s kept clean & gets the highest efficiency reasonably expected basically a “vintage gem” that can’t be bought these days due to new efficiency regulations? ...to be treasured for its simplicity despite its lower efficiency?? ...or is even a new “lower-end” oil furnace likely to be better than an old Trane due to how significant the efficiency difference may be? ...or if not then maybe better for some other reason I could never guess as a layman?
My gut feeling is that the service guy might take the old Trane & install it in his own home b/c it’s so simple & solid it’ll be going strong in however many years it takes before the newer computer-looking-furnace is dead... and that a clean Trane even if old will have high enough efficiency vs a lower-end new one that the difference in efficiency doesn’t warrant the swap. Sorry I couldn’t be more specific re the Trane’s age or the specific furnace models... but does anyone have a generalized answer or thoughts from what I was able to describe? Any insight is definitely appreciated b/c this is an elder relative who won’t acknowledge he’s been getting jacked by some of his contractors, and until I have an answer or opinion from someone other than me or buy a new furnace, he won’t get off my back about it and will begin to inflict negatives upon me through his myriad methods due to me “not taking care” of my house...
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My home has an older (not quite sure re age but hopefully its design may indicate at least a rough idea good enough for the question) Trane oil furnace I’ll describe as best I can. I’m out-of-state and won’t be back for quite a while so can’t give the model number or other specifics I could see if at the house. It is a very simple unit though... which has a nozzle near the base which sprays oil in to an air-box (fire-box?) where it combusts & creates heat that’s exchanged at the top of the unit where piping comes down into and back up out of the unit through a heat-sink/heat exchanger which heats water to power the home’s baseboard heating. There’s nothing else to it at least visible to me and as explained by the guy who serviced it for me last year. He told me it’d basically last forever and just need cleaning each year, and that the only thing that could ever “go wrong” or need work of some kind would be the spray nozzle which could need replacement should it fail... I love that the furnace is so simple & I understand how it works at least on a basic level.
A relative of mine who has been “house-sitting” for me had a guy from a different company come to clean the furnace... and this guy basically said “he needs a new one...” - I understand the higher efficiencies new furnaces can achieve and that a combustion test of sorts can measure the current unit’s efficiency - as well as the fact its annual efficiency will be a different number... (thank you another thread on HVAC-talk...) but this relative has a history of being “taken for a ride” by people who come to his home to fix something... like for example when a tenant thought a light didn’t work b/c they couldn’t operate the light switch... (I couldn’t make this stuff up... the switch was a dimmer slide with an on-off switch beneath the slider. Apparently this genius had only ever used a dimmer switch of the kind that doesn’t have a switch below the slider and instead clicks on and off when the slider hits the bottom of its track... so they say the ceiling’s light fixture is “broke”) - This relative may have developed a reputation among contractors he gets referrals from that he can be told & sold anything... b/c an electrician is hired to go “fix” the light... They must try the switch & realize the “brains” they were dealing with. The end-result is my relative gets told he’s lucky the place hasn’t burned down and that the home’s entire electrical system needs to be replaced. He was ready to do it. I sent someone over who explained the switch and checked the rest for good measure... there was no problem with the wiring or need for any work whatsoever. I now wonder if the furnace technician turned sales department was told about his nature.
I got a picture of the furnace this guy tried to sell him... and I want to get an idea of how egregious this was and/or whether there is a legitimate argument to replace the older Trane due to its efficiency, at least in theory. The new unit is of a lower quality brand than Trane is known to be at least from my impressions of Trane, but I don’t know the newer one’s manufacturer & it’s not clear from the picture. My basic question is re something similar to why I like my 2006 car more than any the same car’s newer models, which in 2007 switched from an inline six to a twin turbo 4 cylinder with alongside the idle engine on/off are extra parts which add to an engine’s efficiency... but at the expense of having a lot more parts to break and replace over time. This new furnace looks a bit like an old mainframe computer... with LCD screens on its front and a “black-box” look to it rather than a simple design like the Trane where I can flap open the “burn-box,” see the oil spray nozzle, and see the single pipe that loops through the top of the unit to heat the system’s water. This newer one has pipes coming in and out of it all over the place like a mini oil refinery...
Thank you for reading what I let become a long question... I wanted to include the “broken” light part for context but had to b/c of how funny/ridiculous it is... I’m just so curious now regardless of whether the guy was trying to rip off my relative (or rather me indirectly) or not... So is a nice and simple older Trane that’s kept clean & gets the highest efficiency reasonably expected basically a “vintage gem” that can’t be bought these days due to new efficiency regulations? ...to be treasured for its simplicity despite its lower efficiency?? ...or is even a new “lower-end” oil furnace likely to be better than an old Trane due to how significant the efficiency difference may be? ...or if not then maybe better for some other reason I could never guess as a layman?
My gut feeling is that the service guy might take the old Trane & install it in his own home b/c it’s so simple & solid it’ll be going strong in however many years it takes before the newer computer-looking-furnace is dead... and that a clean Trane even if old will have high enough efficiency vs a lower-end new one that the difference in efficiency doesn’t warrant the swap. Sorry I couldn’t be more specific re the Trane’s age or the specific furnace models... but does anyone have a generalized answer or thoughts from what I was able to describe? Any insight is definitely appreciated b/c this is an elder relative who won’t acknowledge he’s been getting jacked by some of his contractors, and until I have an answer or opinion from someone other than me or buy a new furnace, he won’t get off my back about it and will begin to inflict negatives upon me through his myriad methods due to me “not taking care” of my house...
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source https://hvac-talk.com/vbb/threads/2227382-Question-re-well-maintained-but-“aging”-Trane-oil-furnace-vs-newer-system?goto=newpost
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