More Gassy Decisions

Purely on a cost basis, it's clearly not possible to justify the furnace replacement unless the furnace itself is ready to go. And it's possible that after 44 years of continuous service, it might be ready to Go Where all the Good Furnances Go (and I'm not sure where that is, as there's a sign explicitly forbidding their presence at the Dump).

But there may be some other, non-financial considerations.

If I replace the gas tank & hot water heater, we’d also have the opportunity to fix a couple of challenges with the house (what? Challenges with 76 year old construction?? Who knew?).

We could start with fixing the house’s stability issues. There are a couple of places in the hallway where the floor sags alarmingly, and we can’t really see what’s wrong with it as the sagging spots are buried behind the existing ductwork and the existing tongue-in-groove ceiling.

We would have the opportunity to also reroute ducting which currently runs right through the middle of the basement. The ducting currently runs just to the right of the stairs in exactly the right place to bash my head on the way to the laundry area. Were it not for this poorly located ducting, the basement has decent ceiling height and could reasonably be additional living space – at least 500 sq ft of it.

We could also have a gas stove and maybe even a fireplace. I REALLY want both.....

But the really compelling reason to go for the furnace upgrade – the Impending Move. We're leaning toward renting out the house, so a new furnace will help in at least two ways –

1) a 44 year old furnace is likely to be more troublesome to maintain than a brand new one. If it needs to be replaced in the next 5 yrs, I’d rather do it now while we live there so I can have it moved to a better location.

2) I’m worried that if a tenant sees an $800+ oil bill, that they will default on it, start building bonfires in the living room for heat and burn the place down (or perhaps just decide that they need to move because the utilities are too pricey).