Does anyone actually do a yearly gas furnace checkup?

torontotim wrote: ↑ Nope. Knock on wood. Had a mid efficiency Lennox installed 16 years ago and never paid a cent for maintenance on it since. When it was installed they recharged the now-19 year old A/C as they had to do something with the coil. It's been fine ever since as well.

I pay $20 a month to rent my water heater with no real regrets. It was changed 3 years ago at no cost to me of course when I called them up and said it's too old for insurance.

I change my filter every month ($15 mid-range filters).

So I guess I've avoided about $2,000 in annual service fees on the furnace over 16 years. I look at it once in a while and it seems clean to me. Maybe I'll check out a YouTube video about whatever else I might actually do to 'maintain' it, but I think being a mid-efficiency unit helps keep things simple.

DaveTheDude wrote: ↑ ...I hear the unethical service providers may tag your furnace for replacement unnecessarily to get a sale when they inspect.

tew wrote: ↑ Depending on how long you've rented your water heater you haven't saved any money. Over 16 years you saved about $2000 on furnace fees but wasted $3140 on water heater rental fees versus purchasing. $4340 rental for 16 years - $1200 purchased. You've paid enough in rental fees to have replaced your HWT three times.

Mike2000z28 wrote: ↑ In Canada, it seems cost prohibitive to do it frankly and this goes for central AC as well. I swap my filter every 3 months and that's it. Why should I pay 250 bucks for someone to just look and say yeah it looks fine.

I notice that Ontario seems to have more competition and offers in general compared to Quebec where your hard pressed to find anyone trades wise.

Thoughts?

dirtmover wrote: ↑ Yes, even if you don't want annual servicing it's a good idea to try and build some sort of a relationship with a HVAC company you can trust. Chances are when you need them, you really need them!

torontotim wrote: ↑ It's been replaced twice in 20 years. Not sure how old the original was when I bought the place in 1999. It was replaced a few years later likely around 2004, and then again in 2018.

I've been paying rent on the heater since 1999 when I bought the house.

Not sure about the $1200 purchased - you think I can have a mid-efficiency water heater supplied and installed for $1200? Lets say I can.

20 years rent = $4,800 + tax as you seem to have done on the $20 monthly rental so $5,424
2 new water heaters = $2,400 + tax or $2,712, but somehow I don't think I'd be getting water heaters installed for $1,200+tax.

So I've spent $2,712 extra over 20 years to rent vs. own my water heater.

Its definitely something I've thought about, but I'm not losing sleep over the extra $135 a year I've paid for my water heater.

I'm also not out there celebrating the $125 a year I've not spent on furnace maintenance.

I'm just saying I haven't paid anything for furnace maintenance in 16 years and don't appear to be any worse off for it.

torontotim wrote: ↑ Nope. Knock on wood. Had a mid efficiency Lennox installed 16 years ago and never paid a cent for maintenance on it since. When it was installed they recharged the now-19 year old A/C as they had to do something with the coil. It's been fine ever since as well.

I pay $20 a month to rent my water heater with no real regrets. It was changed 3 years ago at no cost to me of course when I called them up and said it's too old for insurance.

I change my filter every month ($15 mid-range filters).

So I guess I've avoided about $2,000 in annual service fees on the furnace over 16 years. I look at it once in a while and it seems clean to me. Maybe I'll check out a YouTube video about whatever else I might actually do to 'maintain' it, but I think being a mid-efficiency unit helps keep things simple.