Browse Forums Heating, Cooling & Insulation 1 Jul 24, 2012 7:19 pm I moved house a few months ago, the house was built in 1997 and I'm pretty sure the gas ducted heating system was put in when the house was built, so it's about 15 years old. It's quite noisy, the unit itself (external Stadt J-90 EI) doesn't look in great shape, and it only has a manual controller. More importantly, our gas bills have been very high, which I am assuming is because the unit is inefficient. Having said that, it is still heating the house just fine. On my list of things to do since moving was to get the GDH unit serviced, and ducts cleaned etc, but I haven't gotten around to that yet. Now I'm wondering, instead of spending a few hundred bucks on that, would I be better off just replacing the system? Any thoughts? I'm thinking of a 5 or even 6 star unit, which you can get for about $2-2.5k installed, not including replacement of ducts etc. But am I likely to need to replace the ducts too? We have a double story house so I'd like to have the system zoned to reduce gas usage heating upstairs during the day. And if we do have to replace the ducts -does that entail major upheaval given that they are between the downstairs ceiling and the upstairs floor? Somewhere I read that the cost savings due to the efficiency of the newest units over old units means they pay for themselves in 3-4 years. That might be overstating it, but our gas bill since May is over $800, so there is certainly some room for savings, and obviously the existing system might start to cost more money if it needs repairs etc. Anyone have any real life experience of making such a changeover, and advice on whether it was/was not worthwhile? ok thanks - yes was wondering if that should have been listed as Option Three! 2 7755 Your house roof does not show rusting other than some surface rust on the flashings. In my opinion you dont need to replace or paint the roof other than treat surface rust… 1 10228 |