New Furnace Efficiency Law

To: Condo Associations, Property Owner and/or Managers

The federal Department of Energy will prohibit manufacturers from making gas furnaces less than 90 percent efficient after May 1, 2013. New furnace minimum efficiency laws that will affect all mid rise  condo’s and apartment buildings concerning their gas furnaces. Read page 18,19 and 20:  https://www.appliance-standards.org/sites/default/files/Furnace_AC_HP_Agreement_Text.pdf

90% furnaces are more energy efficient and the flue gases pipe out using PVC pipe, not sheet metal pipe. The older furnaces vent out using sheet metal pipe in a collective flue pipe that runs up the interior of the building to the roof.

Why should you care about the New Furnace Efficiency Law? Here is why:

If your furnace vents into a standard chimney or sheet metal B-vent structure, that type of furnace will not be manufactured any longer after May 1, 2013.

Here are the benefits if you act now:

•  You can still install a chimney furnace that will last 20 – 25 years if properly maintained.
• The cost of the chimney furnace is still very low, the closer we get to May 2013; the costs will rise due to supply and demand.
• The labor to install a chimney vented furnace is much cheaper than the labor involved in changing a chimney vented furnace to a 90% furnace.

If you do NOT act now or before May 2013:

• It is very labor intensive to vent out a 90% furnace in an apartment or condo especially high rise condos and apartments. With finished walls and ceilings, trying to run PVC venting outside a wall or through a ceiling becomes very difficult. Imagine the cost to set up scaffolding on high rise and mid rise building just to vent your furnaces.  If your units have spiral sheet metal duct suspended from the ceilings, where will the new PVC flue pipe run through to get to the outdoors? Architects and engineers may need to be called in for this new law in order to install the new furnace flue piping aesthetically.
• In some jurisdictions, after May 2013, you may have to pay village inspection fees in order to install a 90% furnace in your building.
• As we get closer to May 2013, the price of the 80% furnace will go up. It is financially advantageous to replace your furnace now instead of waiting until the last minute.