Offer structure
How the offer works
An advertised package discount is not the same thing as a furnace that costs nothing to install.
The allowance is not the installation
A fixed allowance against the furnace portion of a package covers only what the writing says it covers. It can offset an equipment price and still leave labor, materials, permits, and modifications on the invoice.
- Equipment allowance. A stated credit against the package.
- Furnace equipment. The exact model and the price basis for that model.
- Installation labor. Removal, setting, connections, commissioning, and other included work.
- Additional work. Venting, condensate, gas piping, electrical, duct transitions, controls, permits, disposal, and accessories where they apply.
- Total installed cost. What the contract says you pay.
The equipment may be a basic specification
The concern this site was built to examine is that some offers may be anchored to a basic 80% AFUE, single-stage furnace — an entry-level configuration — rather than the efficiency, staging, capacity, venting, or controls a particular house needs or already has.
That sentence is not a finding that every promotion uses that furnace. Ask for the manufacturer, model number, AFUE, input and output capacity, staging, blower type, venting category, warranty, and included accessories. An 80% single-stage unit is not automatically the wrong machine. Suitability depends on the house and the installation.
Evidence label: analysis / inference. Source: this site’s build notes, reviewed 2026-10-31. Not an industry dataset.
Questions that have short answers
Does “free furnace” mean the installed furnace costs nothing?
Not by the word alone. Read the allowance, the equipment price, the labor, the required modifications, and the total. Use the calculator with the figures from your quote. Leave unknown boxes blank.
Is installation labor usually four times the equipment price?
This site does not say that. Notes from the project mentioned examples of about $4,000 to $6,000 in labor, sometimes near four times a basic furnace’s equipment price. Treat that as a claim to investigate with your own written numbers. There is no dataset here that would support “usually.”
Do all free-furnace offers use the same entry-level model?
No such claim is made here. Model numbers have to be read off the quote.