Blower motor died on a 18 year old Furnace. Need advice

Posted by on December 19, 2005, 6:02 pm

Hi. I would like some advice. I have an 18 year old Bryant furnace
that seems to work fine. The blower motor went south on it last
Friday. The company that I have a service contract with recomends
replacement of the entire furnace as it has exceeded its life
expectancy. They'll replace the blower on the old one, but are
advising against throwing good money after bad. They say about $500 to
replace the motor, about $2800 for the new furnace (both installed
prices). It's a single family home. The current furnace is 125,000
BTU 60% efficiency, the new one will be 110,000 and more efficient
(80%).

Please help me decide what to do. I am leaning towards accepting the
advice of replacing the furnace, but was not ready for a big-ticket
item just yet. I just want to know what the common sense thing to do
would be. The service company is a reputable one and has been
servicing this house for many, many years. I just owned this house for
about 1.5 years.

Many thanks,
Vladimir

Posted by Dr. Hardcrab on December 19, 2005, 6:17 pm

> Hi. I would like some advice. I have an 18 year old Bryant furnace
> that seems to work fine. The blower motor went south on it last
> Friday. The company that I have a service contract with recomends
> replacement of the entire furnace as it has exceeded its life
> expectancy. They'll replace the blower on the old one, but are
> advising against throwing good money after bad. They say about $500 to
> replace the motor, about $2800 for the new furnace (both installed
> prices). It's a single family home. The current furnace is 125,000
> BTU 60% efficiency, the new one will be 110,000 and more efficient
> (80%).
> Please help me decide what to do. I am leaning towards accepting the
> advice of replacing the furnace, but was not ready for a big-ticket
> item just yet. I just want to know what the common sense thing to do
> would be. The service company is a reputable one and has been
> servicing this house for many, many years. I just owned this house for
> about 1.5 years.

I'd call another company.

If those WERE my choices ($500 vs. $2800) I'd go with the new furnace. But
the big question is:

$500 for a new motor sound rather high. $2800 for a new furnace sounds
rather low. What exactly are you getting?

I'm not there and can't see what you have got....

Posted by on December 19, 2005, 6:30 pm

I thought $500 for a motor is rather high also. I did not get an
offical quote on the motor, but I did get an official quote on the
furnace. Maybe the motor would be less, like $300, but still they say
the furnace that's older than 15 years old is a waste of money to
repair.

The furnace I would be getting for $2800 is Bryant 310 something. It
is an 80% single stage jobber with an inducer fan. 2 year labor
warranty, 5 year parts and 20 years on the heat exchanger. The fuel is
gas, BTW. It is not the fancy wiz-bang 90% furnace with two heat
exchangers and variable speed motor, etc. The motor is not variable
speed, though it has 4 speeds that can be set long term. I live in
Washington DC area, so no severe winters here, but still gets cold and
nasty.

I am handy and can replace the blower myself if I knew where to get one.

Posted by Jim Elbrecht on December 20, 2005, 7:29 am

vferdman@gmail.com wrote:

-snip-

>I am handy and can replace the blower myself if I knew where to get one.

I got mine here-- they were super fast [2 days to NY] & the moter has
been running quietly for 3-4 years now.
http://shop.emotorstore.com/estore/SearchMainPage.asp?mscssid=529e684375f94c01caab781b6a06b553

Jim

Posted by CJT on December 20, 2005, 9:32 am

Jim Elbrecht wrote:

> vferdman@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
> -snip-
>

>>I am handy and can replace the blower myself if I knew where to get one.

>
>
> I got mine here-- they were super fast [2 days to NY] & the moter has
> been running quietly for 3-4 years now.
>

http://shop.emotorstore.com/estore/SearchMainPage.asp?mscssid=529e684375f94c01caab781b6a06b553

>
> Jim
>

I would expect to be able to get any reasonably standard motor locally
in any decent sized city. In my case, a few minutes with Google turned
up the 800 number of GE technical support, and calling them led to a
supplier a few miles from my house. Good thing, too, because my house
temperature was dropping fast.

--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form che...@prodigy.net.

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