I brought my new “central” heating system home in the back of my Ford Focus after getting it off the rack at Home Depot.

That may sound a bit daffy but my “central” heating system is a dual-sided wall furnace.

The wall furnace I had was installed when my house was built in 1953. It only lasted 65 years, go figure.

One of the reasons I bought my house was the fact it did not have central heat and air, it had a crawl space, hardwood floors, and the underside of the roof is the ceiling. There is no attic. For reasons that escape most people, I love the open space feel of a California flat top. Actually that’s a misnomer. My roof isn’t flat but the pitch isn’t enough to use shingles without running the risk of rain runoff causing damage to the roof. That, of course, meant I had to find a roofing company that dealt in commercial-style asphalt roofs which isn’t an easy task given there are few that do such work and even fewer wild about attacking a 988-square-foot residential roof.

I figured a day would come when I may have to replace the wall furnace. It came in early November when I couldn’t get the pilot light relit. By then getting a PG&E technician scheduled to come out — they relight pilot lights at no charge — meant a wait of almost three weeks. No complaints about the wait. I’d much prefer a PG&E worker do it especially if there is a problem with it. Some of the best advice I got was from a retired PG&E worker who contracted with the utility to relight pilots when I had an issue doing so back in 2010. Given the sturdy construction of the unit he said if he were me he’d keep the furnace until it stopped operating. Every other “expert” suggested it was better to change the furnace on the assumption newer is better.

This time around the PG&E worker determined the controller had gone out. He figured the part would run about $150. I assumed the labor — judging by what some plumbing companies charge — could easily push that cost to $1,000.

At that point replacing a failed part on a 62-year-old furnace didn’t make much sense.

So I do what every challenged “handyman” does those days and went on-line. Rest assured there are not a lot of options for wall furnaces. Searching the usual websites for home improvement also came up empty for double-sided units.

So, like an idiot, I made some calls trying to find a store that carried wall furnaces in the area. Each time the employee that answered the phone asked if I meant “water heater” instead of “wall furnace.” When I explained what it was, they said they didn’t think they carried them. Then I asked if they could switch me to plumbing. All but one did so without questioning me. The one that did said she’d connect me but doubted plumbing would have what I was looking for.

After searching the Internet and spending close to an hour on hold, I did it the old-fashioned way to avoid coming up empty handed and wasting my time. I went to a quaint destination known as a store. In this case it was Home Depot. I seriously doubted they could help me with what I needed given their website showed the only wall furnaces they had at the Manteca store were single-sided. It ended up getting a Home Depot associate in plumbing that knew wall furnaces inside out. They also had two double-sided wall furnaces in stock. He noted they get a fair amount of requests for them.

My decision on what to buy was simple. There is only one firm — Williams out of Southern California — that produces what I needed.

The damages including taxes came to less than $900 for a unit that generates more heat than the one I was replacing.

Next was the real challenge  — trying to find someone to install it. Given it is dealing with natural gas and correctly assuming it wouldn’t be a perfect fit, this was not a project I was interested in tackling myself. I had already called five plumbing companies and even two handyman services who all informed me they didn’t install wall furnaces and knew of no one that did. Home Depot also had no service provider that did such work. I sent requests to two of those websites that promise to connect you with experts to handle whatever jobs you have around the house and found no takers.

I finally found two plumbing companies that said they installed wall furnaces. One quoted a price that practically would have required me to take out a second mortgage. The other was half the price.

During the installation I learned the firm that made the original furnace went out of business 35 years ago. The plumber also said mine was only the second wall furnace that he had installed in 30 years.

Given that the wall furnace I replaced was three years older than me and I’m 62 I can see why there’s not a lot of them being replaced every year.

It might sound a bit whacked to actually prefer a home heated by a wall furnace and to eschew a swamp cooler on the roof and a wall-mounted air conditioner. I’ve never used the swamp cooler. The air conditioner has never been used more than 10 times in any given year. 

My reasoning was four-fold. Not having central heat or air makes it easier to adjust my body to the weather making it easier to tolerate and be comfortable in the valley chill on overcast winter days and in the valley heat. It also has eliminated an age-old problem I had with a runny nose given how I heat and cool doesn’t require an air-tight box as most homes do today.

A liberal use of large ceiling fans located in every room keeps the wall furnace efficient and keeps the place at 65 degrees leaving me with “peak” PG&E bills of just under $140 in December and January. My PG&E bill the rest of the time is less than half that amount.

Reason No. 3 is it is essentially expense free to maintain and when it goes out I can afford to replace it.

And in terms of aesthetics I get the look I want in a home. I’ve seen a few flattops where they have added false ceilings to get central heat and air.  It kills the open feel of the floor plan and redefines the concept of claustrophobic.

There is an added bonus that someone pointed out the other day. If you come in from working outside and you’re chilled to the bone, you can crank up the thermostat a bit and stand in front of the wall furnace for a rapid defrost. Try to do that with modern central heating.

This column is the opinion of executive editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Bulletin or Morris Newspaper Corp. of CA.  He can be contacted at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com or 209.249.3519.