A big hunk of burning love.

This week we had our rental unit’s furnace serviced. Our heating and cooling guy, who is amazing, informed us of the new law on furnaces.

Apparently the new law requires us to have a furnace with 90% efficiency by May 2013. The standard now is 80% efficiency. If you already have an 80% efficient furnace you do not need to replace it before May, but when it breaks you can no longer buy the same replacement.

Great for the environment and great for your energy bills. So what is the problem?

We vent our furnace through the chimney. The new furnaces need to be vented by a sloping PVC pipe. It can not go straight up into the chimney. It needs to vent out of the wall. And since there are houses on either side of us, the vent would have to be in front or in the back of our house. That’s not just installing a new furnace. That’s a rehab job.

We could buy a new furnace now and get it installed so we won’t have to worry about this problem for another 15 or 20 years. Or we could suck it up and change when our furnace finally breaks. We haven’t decided yet, but I’m glad we were informed before the law went into effect so we could have a chance to make a decision. I hope you are too.