Wondering If You Should Replace Your Furnace? Learn The Signs That Tell You It’s Time
How’s your furnace doing these days? Did it get you through last winter in comfort, or are you worried about its performance — or even its safety — this winter?
Is it making strange noises that reverberate through your greater Cincinnati home? These are just some of the questions that you should ask yourself when you’re deciding whether to replace your furnace.
There are many variables involved in this decision, and each one weighs more or less, depending on what’s important to you. Here’s the core list of factors to consider when you’re deciding if this is the year for a new heating system:
- All those years: If you have a furnace that’s 15 years old or older, consider a high-efficiency replacement that carries the Energy Star label. There’s a good chance that the annual fuel utilization efficiency of your present furnace is lower than 70 percent. That’s money you’re sending up the chimney. In comparison, any furnace that you purchase today must have an AFUE of at least 78 percent. And some high-efficiency furnaces have AFUEs of nearly 100 percent. That means you’re wasting hardly any energy or money, and you’re helping the planet by significantly reducing your carbon emissions.
- All that inconvenience: If your heating system often needs repairs, it’s not only annoying, uncomfortable and time-wasting, but also costly. Think about applying that repeated-repair money to a new system.
- All those energy bills: If your energy bills are soaring, replacing your furnace with a highly efficient model will allow you to take charge of those bills. In fact, the payback period on a high-efficiency furnace can be just a few years.
- All that discomfort: If certain rooms in your home are too hot or too cold, you might need to add insulation, and you might also benefit from a zoned system. Zoning directs conditioned air where it’s needed, allowing you to warm or cool one area more than others.
- All that humidity: Poorly performing equipment, inadequate system capacity and/or leaky ducts may make the air overly dry in wintertime and/or too humid in the summer months.
Need help deciding whether to replace your furnace? Would you like help selecting new equipment and features? For assistance with complicated choices such as these, rely on the expertise of Apollo Home Heating, Cooling & Plumbing. We’re happy to help. Visit our website for valuable HVAC information, or just give us a call.
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