HVAC Contractor Stands by Navien NPF Series Hydro-Furnaces
For the last five years, Reding Inc. Heating & Cooling has provided residential and commercial customers with solutions to meet their HVAC needs. Located in Springville, N.Y., just outside of Buffalo, Reding Inc. covers jobs across Western N.Y. and Northern Pa. - everything from boilers and air conditioners to plumbing, water treatment work, and furnaces.
Since its opening by owner Derek Reding, the company has grown to 20 employees with 12 trucks on the road. In that time, it has also become a loyal supporter of Navien products, starting with combi-boilers and most recently, the NPF Series Hydro-furnaces. Reding believes in these furnaces so much that he counts his business among Naviens’ customers. “We worked with Navien for about five years, and when they first talked about bringing the furnace out to the HVAC side of things, we really wanted to try one. So, we put one in our own building to see how it worked for us," he said. “We’ve really enjoyed how it heats and the money we've saved on fuel.”
The NPF hydro-furnace features a combination of technologies that support efficiency and cost savings, which, for Reding, meant cutting their heating bill in half compared to the 92% efficient furnace previously heating the shop. The NPF’s variable capacity blower supports that cost savings by increasing electrical efficiency and matching the exact airflow requirements of the HVAC system. It also operates with Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) in continuous fan-on mode, which costs less than traditional blower motors.
The furnace contains a stainless-steel hydronic heat exchanger and condensing technology, along with a modulating gas burner. These technologies allow the NPF to operate from 15 to 100% capacity for both natural gas and propane applications and make the furnace 97% efficient. Navien also offers the NPF in both vertical upflow and horizontal flow models.
“It's been a great piece of equipment for us, and it's easy to inform the customers about it,” Reding added. “They've heard Navien everywhere, and with us having our own Navien furnace, it's an easy sale to talk about.”
Reding purchased 100 NPFs for its inventory so far and has installed approximately 50 of the furnaces in their area. “We’ve never had a call back or customer complaint since we started selling the NPFs about a year ago now and based on our success with them, we’ve even added a second one to our shop.”
Advanced Design Simplifies Installation
According to Keith Rogers, Install Manager, the design of the NPF Hydro-furnace has made installation easier than other furnaces. “One big feature of this hydro-furnace is its modulating capabilities. It’s much easier setting it up and getting it going since it modulates itself,” he explained. “When we install these, we pretty much go off the manual, and it’s a straightforward process. We've done boilers forever, so it's basically the same.”
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Service Technician, Scott Hohman, agrees. “Installation is a matter of hooking up your venting, gas, and drain. We don’t hook the water supply. We generally just fill them with the water out of our reverse osmosis machine here. It's very simple. I like the B width and C widths. They keep it consistent, so most of our retrofits line right up. Setup is a piece of cake through the digital display.”
The NPF hydro-furnace features a user-friendly, unit-mounted control panel and Setup Wizard to guide the installation process. It displays clear text that walks the installer through the unit’s configuration, including fan speeds, temperature modes, static pressure, and more. “With the NPF, it's got everything on the display panel spelled out for you. Full numbers, full letters, full words, everything. It’s super easy to read, super easy to see, and has a nice backlit display. It’s a lot nicer than just a little three-digit control board and makes installs go a lot faster and smoother than other furnaces,” said Rogers.
The unit’s design allows for ambidextrous installation, where the standard left-side gas, electrical, and water connections can be easily converted to the right side. “We've switched from left to right side connections during installations without a hiccup,” said Hohman. “Everything's right there in the open, so it’s easy to switch over and go out the left or the right side compared to some of the other furnaces we've used in the past. Everything is a little tighter on those ones.”
Navien has also made it simple to change the NPFs from natural gas to propane. “This unit comes originally as natural gas, but it's about a five-minute procedure to change it to propane. We just switch the orifice plate, run a quick combustion test, and make any adjustments as needed,” explained Redding.
Quiet Operation with Even, Comfortable, and Safe Heat
Along with the variable capacity blower and modulating gas burner, the NPF Hydro-furnace features a variable-speed blower motor, which helps improve efficiency and reduce noise. “The old systems were very loud. The Navien furnaces we put in have been very quiet. Our front-desk employees can talk on the phone. They don't have to worry about the noise from the blower motor or firing up. So, it's made a very quiet work area in our shop,” said Redding. “The NPFs are offering the same benefit for our customers.”
The NPF hydro-furnace provides comfortable, even heat that Reding’s customers appreciate. “We have a lot of older farmhouses in the area, and a lot of the older furnaces we’ve taken out are 80% efficient. Customers are used to the high discharge temperature of the older ones. This NPF is much more comfortable for them compared to a standard high-efficiency furnace. We can control the discharge air temperature with it.”
Hohman agrees. “These old rural farmhouses still have drastically undersized ductwork and oversized furnaces. Before, when we put in a traditional fire tube furnace, it didn’t provide the same discharge temperature to make customers feel warm,” he explained. “When we put these NPF Hydro-furnaces in, we can adjust that supply air discharge temperature and get them that 150-degree discharge air temp, while also maintaining the lower airflow of their smaller ductwork. With the Navien, we can make the furnace work for the duct work instead of having to make the duct work for the furnace, and it gives off even heat.”
“I like that it has a hot water coil inside of it. With the hydronic fan coil the NPF hydro-furnace uses, you don't get dry air nearly as much,” adds Rogers. "I've had a few customers after this winter tell me what a huge difference it makes. Their humidifier didn't have to run nearly as much, so then they're saving on water bills, and it adds to the comfort the units provide.”
The NPF hydro-furnace offers a significant safety benefit that Reding says he and their customers appreciate. “We've seen great success with the combustion side of these units. There’s a boiler inside the cabinet with the hot water heat exchanger, and the forced air from the blower motor blows through that heat exchanger. That means there is no combustion in the airstream. For customers who have experienced carbon monoxide issues with conventional furnaces in the past, they now feel safer with the boiler-style combustion process of the NPF.”
“It’s not hard to convince a customer about the NPF, since Navien is everywhere now. It's almost an everyday household name,” Reding explained. “For us, it hasn't been a hard decision to push the furnaces, since we know they are reliable and that Navien stands behind them.”
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