Furnaces

[Wes S.]

I Live in the Midwest and have a few Rental Properties with older furnaces, I mean 4'x5' Beasts, that are gas guzzlers not to mention they may quit at any time.

I've seen a lot of 10-15 year old Heil's, ComfortMaker's, Rudd's and other furnaces in classified ads for around $100 +/- that people have kept after updating their home (and being upsold by the furnace guy)

I'm thinking about buying these up for inventory for the unforseen day when I need to replace an old beast with something half way decent.

2 QUESTIONS:
- What do you guys think about this thought?
- Installation experience needed or steps to complete?

Thanks!

[Ralph S.]

I got an early model High Effic. Furnace once for $100. Luckily, it fit the plenum and intake from the old one without modification, and the only new part was the PVC exhaust as I was replacing an 80%er. Got a guy to install it for $150. Then I had to get another guy in when the fan motor appeared to burn out (froze up and wouldn't turn). He fixed that with some kind of bearing lube, but found several other items and had to get parts, had to redo the exhaust from the first guy and in all, I might have saved $300-500 over the cost of new High Effic. Not worth the trips and what felt like Chinese water torture trying to get all the bugs out. It's worked flawlessly since, but still wish I'd have just gone new.