Sugar House Furnace Replacement

The brief

A 1924 Sugar House bungalow on its second furnace. The original was an 80% AFUE forced-air with a big return-air problem — half the house ran cold all winter. The owners wanted modern efficiency, but they also wanted the house to stop hissing every time the blower kicked on.

The approach

We replaced the furnace with a Lennox SLP99V variable-capacity unit and rebuilt the return-air path through the central wall cavity, adding a properly sized cold-air return on the second floor where the original install had skipped one. MERV-13 filtration cabinet went in upstream — overdue for a hundred-year-old house with original plaster.

The install

One day. Crew of two. We protected the original oak floors before any tool touched the basement stairs. New furnace in by lunch, return-air work completed by mid-afternoon, commissioning by 5 pm.

The result

The blower is whisper-quiet at low speed. The second floor holds temperature for the first time in fifteen years. Gas usage in the first month is down 28% over the same month last year — measured at the meter, not the marketing pitch.