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Tips on if you should Repair or Replace your Heating System

Should I Repair or Replace my Furnace?

Answer:
If your furnace starts breaking down, or if you think your gas bill is too high, it may be time to consider a replacement furnace. If your furnace has a cracked heat exchanger, you must replace the furnace for safety reasons. A cracked heat exchanger can draw carbon monoxide into your home, so it is cause for an emergency furnace replacement.

There are several things to consider when your furnace breaks. The age of the furnace and past experience with repairs must be considered. If your furnace has seen it’s share of replacement parts then either you have a lemon or the darn thing is just getting old. With inexpensive parts, you can certainly take a chance and hope for the best. If the part is a high cost item then you must consider the overall cost against the advantage of the savings you could realize with an new furnace.

When it comes to your high gas bills, here are some basic numbers: Furnaces older than 5 years may have efficiency ratings as low as 60%. Essentially with this furnace for every $1 you spend on your gas bill, 40 cents is lost to the outside, doing nothing to heat your home. Current federal standards require efficiency rates of at least 78% in new furnaces, but high-efficiency units can achieve rates over 96%. That 40 cents of every dollar that you lose to an older furnace could be less than four cents with a new, high-efficiency unit.


What Should I Consider before I Buy a New System?

Answer:
When it's time for a new heating system, it makes sense to invest in high-efficiency equipment. The money you save in energy costs can pay back the price difference in just a few years. The type of system that's best for you depends on the size, style and age of your home, as well as the type of energy available.

The energy efficiency of a forced-air furnace is measured by its AFUE - annual fuel utilization efficiency. This number calculates the percent of energy used that is returned to your home in the form of warm air. For example, today's high-efficiency furnaces have an average AFUE of 93.2 - for every dollar you spend on heating energy, 93.2 percent is put back into your home as warmed air.

A standard furnace, with an AFUE of 80, has only one heat exchanger to extract the warmth produced by the gas burner. As the AFUE indicates, only 80 percent of the available heat is circulated back into your home – the rest turns into water vapor that’s exhausted outdoors through the flue pipe. In a high-efficiency furnace, with an AFUE of 90 percent or higher, a secondary heat exchanger will evaporate that water vapor a second time to pull out nearly all the available heat. For example if you invest in a York 98 AFUE furnace, only two percent of the available heat is wasted.

Forced-air furnaces manufactured 20 years ago had AFUE ratings of 60 percent or less. And if your home still has an old “gravity-flow” furnace with no blower fan, more than 70 percent of the heat can be wasted. New furnaces will also have other energy-smart features like electronic pilot light ignitions, sealed combustion units and vent dampers.

If you’ve owned your home for a few years, you’re probably familiar with the volatile nature of natural gas prices – and you might be wondering if you should switch to another type of heating fuel. Even with the seasonal increases in gas prices, caused by tight supplies, a high-efficiency natural gas furnace will cost less to operate than an electric furnace.

The next big innovation is making your system a hybrid heating system. By simply adding a heat pump in place of your air conditioner you can take advantage of huge savings over natural gas, propane, oil and even electric resistance heat.

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