Hello, I am in need of a new oil furnace and came across a Danby KLR-100 which does not have the high efficiency condensing feature. I read that the condensing ones are trouble. I cannot find hardly any user reviews on this brand. I presently have a 24 year old Airco that has a leaky heat exchanger and would like an upgrade.
If anyone has any experience with Danby furnaces, your input would be appreciated. Thank You.
Since you have at least 20 minutes until the heating season begins in earnest, it makes sense to do some amount of analysis now to figure out the right SIZE replacement equipment. The
KLR-100 can have output between 66,000 -91,000 BTU/hr depending on which burner & nozzle. How do you know whether that will be enough, (or too much)? Comfort is about sizing it so that the duty cycles are extra long when its extra cold, but still enough burner to keep up. Most heating equipment in VT is ridiculously oversized for the loads, and while it's able to keep the place warm, it's not exactly optimal comfort, alternating from the hot blast from the registers for 10-15 minutes followed by the chill, repeat, even during the coldest weather. When the equipment craps out it's an opportunity moment for getting it right, so that the run times are VERY long during cold weather, but never loses ground.
To get a handle on the load, run fuel use against heating degree-day data (or a K-factor stamped on a wintertime oil fill up, which is the same info packaged differently) to calculate the home's actual heat load at Barre's 99% outside design temp of -11F (yes, I know it gets colder than that, about 1% of the time). For details on how to run those numbers see
this bit o' bloggery.
The KLR-100 isn't a current model, but the documentation implies it was still being made as recently as 2014. There may still be old-stock new KLR-100s around, and maybe even local support (the manufacturer's HQ are across the border in Quebec, but not too far from Barre VT). Still don't dive in until you're positive it's the right size furnace for your application.
Do you have an air conditioner that needs to work with the furnace air handler too?
Even the smallest oil burners are in the ~60,000 BTU/hr range, and for optimal comfort the furnace should be no more than 1.4x the design heat load at the 99% outside design temp. So if the 99% heat load is (60K/1.4= ) ~43K the very smallest oil furnaces might still be a good fit, but much smaller than that something else would be more comfortable. Sometimes the "right" solution is a cold climate heat pump, even in VT, at VT's higher than US average electric rates, especially (but not exclusively) when the load numbers turn out to be south of 45,000 BTU/hr.
