If you need a new furnace installed in your Louisville home, do you know what equipment you want to replace your old furnace with? When it’s time to pick a furnace for your home, there are several options on the market. Older furnaces can be upgraded with new natural gas furnaces, electric furnaces, propane furnaces, or oil furnaces. Modern furnaces include options like modulating gas furnaces with variable speed blowers, sealed combustion heating systems, two-stage gas furnaces, and more.
Before you begin to shop for a new furnace, it’s important to know what you’re looking for in a heating system. HVAC system size, furnace efficiency rating, and fuel source are all things you need to decide on before you can start combing through the market for the best furnace.
Jarboe’s Plumbing, Heating & Cooling is a Louisville HVAC contractor who provides furnace installation for homeowners throughout the Greater Louisville Metro area. Between our Homeowner’s Buying Guide and personal consultation, our team will answer all of your furnace questions. Find out how energy efficient your existing furnace is and how its energy efficiency compares to most modern furnaces. Learn how an efficient furnace will impact your heating bills. Discover how much heating power is required to provide the warm air your home needs to keep the programmable thermostat at a comfortable temperature. Explore your fuel source options and see what a difference each choice makes on your energy bills.
It doesn’t matter if you want natural gas furnaces, oil furnaces, electric furnaces, propane models, high-efficiency furnaces, or a standard efficiency furnace – size matters. HVAC systems need to be sized appropriately for a home, or else heating and cooling equipment will not function properly. Finding the right fit matters for optimal efficiency, best comfort management, and protecting the new furnace from damage and early replacement.
Older furnaces and new furnaces alike measure capacity by British Thermal Units (BTUs). The size of a furnace doesn’t refer to the unit’s physical dimensions but its capability for producing heat. Furnace size informs a consumer how many BTUs are required over an hour to increase the indoor temperature to a comfortable level.
How do you size a home’s heating system correctly? Working with a qualified HVAC technician really makes the difference here. HVAC companies perform a load calculation, which determines how much heat is needed to raise the temperature in a home. With this information, you can find the right furnace that is the right size.
It may sound like a good idea to pick a modern furnace that is a size bigger or smaller. One could assume that a bigger furnace produces more heat and heats a home faster, while a smaller furnace can be purchased at a lower furnace cost. While both of these things may be true, they are certainly not desirable. Incorrectly sized heating systems generate all sorts of comfort problems – an oversized furnace blows hot air into a home too quickly, while a small furnace is unable to generate enough warm air. As these systems fail to operate properly, they experience more stress and wear, which causes components to break down. This stress will eventually lead to early system death. The only way to avoid the discomfort and high monthly heating bill that results when you use this type of furnace is to replace it.
Sizing must be exact for heating and cooling HVAC system equipment. If you need to find a new furnace for your home, first call your HVAC contractor to perform a heating load calculation and determine the right size for your new furnace.
A number of different energy choices can be used to heat a home. Before you start comparing furnaces, you need to think about the fuel source you want to use to create heat for your family. A standard-efficiency furnace or a high-efficiency furnace can be found using natural gas, heating oil, electricity, or propane as a fuel source. The type of fuel you heat your home with will affect your energy bills as well as the initial cost of buying a new furnace and having the furnace installed at your home.
Often, homeowners feel it’s simplest to replace an old furnace with a new unit that uses the same fuel source. If you have multiple energy sources available to your home or it’s feasible to connect to a new utility source, using a different type of heating system fuel may have some advantages.
Furnace HVAC systems have energy efficiency ratings that tell consumers how much fuel is used for heating and if the unit wastes energy. AFUE stands for annual fuel utilization efficiency, and this percentage will tell you the efficiency of your existing furnace or a new one. Basically, it shares the amount of total energy consumption made into heat and the amount wasted.
Minimum efficiency furnaces are 80% AFUE. When it comes to your monthly heating bills, 80% of that total was used to make heat for your family, and 20% of it is wasted with this type of furnace. A high-efficiency gas furnace goes up to around 98% AFUE, while an electric high-efficiency furnace can be 100% AFUE because no electricity is wasted in the generation of heat.
When shopping for high-efficiency furnaces, you’ll find features that aren’t available in standard efficiency furnaces. These features and advanced components improve the energy efficiency of the system and offer better comfort control for the user. Some choices you will have as you determine how to choose a new furnace include:
Replacing an old furnace through a furnace installation project is no cheap task. Furnace prices average in the thousands, and furnace cost is greatly impacted by the different factors we mentioned above.
If you want to find out the exact furnace prices for any gas furnace or other model you are considering for purchase, call your HVAC contractor. HVAC companies provide quotes for furnace installation, which will include the price to buy a new furnace. There are several HVAC system manufacturers producing a number of different furnace options, so don’t worry that a choice may be out of your price range, as another brand may have a comparable unit available that is more affordable.
Older furnaces won’t last forever – furnace replacement can provide your Louisville area home with ample warm air and a reliable source of heating for years to come. Contact Jarboe’s Plumbing, Heating & Cooling today to discuss new furnace choices and receive an estimate for furnace installation cost.