I talked about heat pumps to an expert (?). He said it would be too expensive for my old house because it requires a lot of pipes? I will ask the expert about that today. It. is cold and damp this morning. My bones are aching.

Jeff, it is the heat exchanger (?) and the inducer motor(?). Can those be installed new without replacing the whole unit?

@Spinliesel Oh, no, that's pretty much the "essence" of the furnace so to speak. I will preface this with admitting I know very little of what can be known about HVAC, but I think at that point, unfortunately, you're better off getting a whole new unit.

@JeffMurray That's my idea as well. Let's see how it goes.

Cyclone, you won't get 17 more years out of me, either. I am leaving the house ( built by hand in 1860) to my grandson. He is lucky it does not have the original "octopus" oil furnace. You guys are my subject-matter experts here.

@Spinliesel go on, you don't look a day over 60

@Cyklone Thank you, Dear. You made my day!

Thanks, Hippiecheck. I take your advice. My house is from 1860, built by hand by the man who raised his family there. There are a lot of idiosyncracies, as you can well imagine. None of the windows and doors have exactly the same size openings and replacing anything is always a custom job. I want to leave a house to my grandson that he can manage. He is not very handy.

@Spinliesel I grew up in a house built in the early 1900s, none of the corners were true square, and the windows were drafty. The house had a coal furnace when first built, there was a coal room next to to the furnace room. I much prefer modern buildings. My daughter OTOH likes the older houses, they have "more character". And she is coming to realize character is not always comfortable.