More furnace fun. Woke up to a cold house again yesterday. Exhaust fan running, no burner or blower fan. Called the HVAC guy again. Eventually they came back out and poked it until they figured out the gas valve is dead. So now we're into new furnace time. At least they are eating the second transformer and control panel costs. Quoted $700 for a replacement Rheem unit and $300 for install. I suspect install will go a bit higher due to the physical size issues. Close enough to what I could do online that it's easier to run with the local guy. Slightly better warranty with the Rheem, it would appear too. The local guy has not tried to up-sell me, which is refreshing.
We have a Heil single stage, std fan model. 15.5" wide cabinet, 75k btu, 80% efficiency model. Odd size now, so likely will be putting in a 17.5" wide unit and they will have to make a transition to the A/C coil. Old unit is 40" high, new is 34" high, so at least there is some room to do the transition, If I understand correctly on how that needs to get done. Depth is the same on both units and plenty of room in the furnace space for the slightly larger furnace. They have to get one, but should be able to get it locally. Waiting to see when they can do the R&R.
A tidbit I learned after speaking to a Goodman rep over the phone is that furnace warranties are void unless it's installed by a 'qualified' HVAC technician. He got a little squirrelly about what made a tech 'qualified'.
Rant: Why is it that the diagnostic process has died out so badly in most repair industries? Cars, bikes, electronics, furnaces, etc. These industry workers are often well trained and skilled tradesmen (and women), but most just throw parts at the problem until it's fixed or there is a smoking gun. Having spent over a decade being paid to wrench on cars, it used to be SOP to find the root cause of the problem and repair THAT. Not just toss a part at it and hope it fixes it. Lots of process skills involved in that, and sure, not ignoring the simple "known good part" swap to rule something out or confirm, but nearly every individual part of a complex system is test-able to confirm function.