Goodman GDS80904BNA Open Flame Heater

So I could freeze my butt off! Not really. I had just moved into a new house. Did I say new house? It was really a fixer-upper. In case you didn’t know, a fixer-upper is a house that needs fixin’, and the repair costs are in the upper stratosphere! Hence the phrase fixer-upper.

The season was fall, and winter was coming up faster than a bobcat with a bur under its tail. So heat was the first priority. I tried to light the pilot of the 110-year-old heater that was already installed in my ramshackle shack. The pilot broke off! I guess the rust just wasn’t strong enough to hold it in place.

So now I’m tearing out the wall to remove the old rust-bucket! What a mess! After I hauled it to the dump, I had to vacuum the rust off the floor!

My Goodman Experience

I shopped around town to find the best deal. I knew I could save $$$ if I installed the new heater myself. After all, I was now an expert-I had bought one of those How-to-Waste-Your-Time-and-Money-Fixing-Things-Yourself books. With my new found knowledge of installing heaters-I DIDN’T NEED ANYBODY’S HELP.

I ended up finding the best deal on the Internet. I ended up paying around $800.00 for the Goodman heater and the shipping and handling.

The 45,000 BTU heater came with a 20-year warranty for the heat exchanger, and a five-year warranty for all the remaining parts. My shack is about 1000 square feet and this heater works well for that coverage area.

After about a week of Heinz-Catsup anticipation, the biggest monster truck you ever saw pulled up my street and made a beeline for my house-like JAWS! Thank God it stopped short! The delivery guy climbs out of the cab-jumps down onto the street (yes, the truck was that big)-and has me sign the papers.

He opens up the back of the truck-there’s nothing in the back of this whale of a truck except my Goodman heater! He lowers the heater to the street with a hydraulic apparatus. I thank him; he thanks me…yada yada…then drives off.

Now I just have to figure out how to get this sucker into the house.

Let’s see, there’s four steps…hmmm? Well at least I figured out how to get the box open. I did, with the help of some neighborhood teenagers playing hooky from school, get the heater into the house and into the heater closet.

I then looked at the instruction manual-I had to take a nap. When I awoke from my nap, I threw the manual away. Believe it or not (I am still pinching myself) I managed to hook the heater up to the gas line, and hook up the thermostat.

It works great! So far my Goodman heater has given me two years of trouble-free, thermostat-controlled heat to my house.

My Thoughts

What I like about the Goodman heater aside from the fact that it heats my home, is the energy savings provided by what I think is an ingenious invention: the piezo-electric lighter. The old rust-bucket heaters required that the pilot be lit all of the time-wasting precious natural gas. The piezo-electric lighter automatically lights the pilot only when your heater is actually in use. The rest of the time, the gas is off.

I have saved big $$$ during the winter as a result.

The only negative thing I can say is that the heater comes with a lot of scary warning stickers like: “Don’t Stick Your Hand In the Flame, Idiot!,” “Heater’s Insulation If Swallowed Can Cause Cancer In Lab Rats,” “Non-believers Who Use This Product Will Burn In Hell,” ad nausea!

All kidding aside, I have not had any problems with my Goodman heater-it is as good as it’s gonna get!