Like most consumers faced with an older, broken furnace, I knew very little about furnace prices or specs. As a musician and audiophile, a quiet unit was something I was willing to pay for. Imagine my disappointment when the unit touted in Altlascare’s literature as “Ensuring the ultimate in energy savings and the lowest sound levels.” actually sounds like a jet taking off. After the service people installed the furnace, leaving quite a mess, including gunk poured into my sink and waste basket, I noticed both the exceedingly loud “take off” sound of the furnace, as well as a leaking vent pipe. I called them to address these issues, even though gluing the leak was something I could have easily done myself. Once the leak was sealed the service guy would not wait for the furnace to ramp up to high fire, citing being in a hurry. He never heard the noise, nothing was done. No one ever called to make sure our concerns had been addressed. I resigned myself to coping with a loud expensive furnace, thinking there was nothing that could be done about. After months of having to crank the volume on the TV and shout at family members to be heard, I called them again to come and look at the furnace. The guy who came tweaked as best as he could, but was unable to reduce the noise. I thought when he was there that he might have gotten it down by 2db, but later measurements confirm no change. I measured between the vent and cold air exchange in the living room; furnace off - 28db, low fire - 35db, high fire - 48db. That’s more than 64 times the ambient sound level (decibels are logarithmic, the common log of 2 is 3.02, so the sound pressure is doubled with each 3.02 decibels).
The salesman, emphasized the quietness of the unit several times, the literature provided boasted about it, but the product did not deliver. I paid $8570.80 after rebate for a super-loud medium range furnace (and air conditioner) that seems to use the same amount of fuel as my old (high efficiency) furnace . Needless to say, I feel totally ripped off.
