95 is the way to be.

We just purchased a new, high efficiency furnace. It's incredibly slick, and actually cost a lost less than I had originally thought. The cost was around $4000, and since it is energy efficient, we will be receiving 30% of that cost back from the federal government in the form of tax credits. Pretty slick, I'd say.

Our old furnace was a beast. It was a modern furnace, but 26 years old. A furnace filter usually needs to be replaced once a year. The filter we had was never replaced. Ever. 26 years of dust, hair, and anything else airborne was still in that filter. I'm glad I never saw it when Genz-Ryan removed it.

In it's place sits a brand new, 95% efficiency Lennox furnace. The main points about the new furnace is that it is quiet, uses a lot less energy, and has a continually running fan to filter the air inside the house. The fan is a huge plus, since we opted for the improved filter that removes 95% of everything foreign object in the air. The fan is running the air through the filter even when the furnace is not on. Since Hilary has allergies, this should reduce her symptoms when they flare up.

High efficiency furnaces has some interesting quirks to them though. A high efficiency furnace does not use the normal chimney stack in a home and the intake and exhaust are vented out of the side of the home. Our vents are near the garden, one pointing down and the other pointing straight out. In addition, they also creates condensation in the intake and exhaust, which would normally flow back into the furnace. Thankfully, they have to redirect it to a drain. In Winifred manor, there is no floor drain so a sanitary pump was installed to pump the water into a standard opening in the sewer pipe. It's rather neat, since there is now a clear hose full of water running up through the ceiling of the basement.

Finally, we have a brand new thermostat, which is operated by a touchscreen. It's pretty fancy, and we will be saving even more energy when I program the thing. That is a project coming soon.

So now I'm sitting here in a nice, warm house. I'm not even sure the furnace is running right now. It probably is, but the thing is so quiet I have to put my hand up to the vent to feel if air is passing through. Oh... Yep, it's running. Would it be crazy to wish for winter to really see the thing in action?