Tips on Buying a High-Efficiency Furnace for Your Monrovia Home

Tips on Buying a High-Efficiency Furnace for Your Monrovia Home

A furnace replacement today involves many more decisions than it did in the past when there weren’t as many efficiency features. If you’re thinking about buying a high-efficiency furnace, we’ve included a couple tips below to help simplify the process.

Furnace Efficiency

The efficiency of a furnace is rated as a percentage of home heating output against home energy input, known as Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency, or AFUE. Very old furnaces may only reach 65 or 70 AFUE, meaning that only 65 to 70 cents of the energy dollar actually goes towards heating your home. Today’s high-efficiency furnaces reach 98 AFUE. So, upgrading an old furnace could cut heating bills by 33 percent.

Home Efficiency

Comparing furnaces by efficiency ratings is simple enough, but it’s not the only factor to consider when buying a high-efficiency furnace. To maximize the performance and efficiency of your new furnace, you should prepare your home by sealing air leaks, shoring up insulation and using effective window treatments. Efficiency upgrades have the potential to reduce the size of your furnace, cutting down on purchase price.

Furnace Sizing

Correctly sizing your new furnace is vital. An oversized furnace can’t reach maximum efficiency and will cycle on and off frequently. This causes discomfort, which is the opposite of what you want when buying a new system. Your HVAC professional should go by the book, or Manuals J, S and D, for assessing the heating load of your home, as well as for selecting the right sized furnace and determining the condition of your ductwork system.

There are dozens of factors for determining your home’s load and furnace size, including a simple square footage count. The number and size of windows your home has is also very important because they’re generally responsible for a large portion of heat loss. Additionally, the orientation of your home to the sun is considered, as well as energy usage habits and more.

For more tips on buying a high-efficiency furnace, please contact Air-Tro, Inc. today. We’ve been serving Pasadena and Southern California residents for 45 years.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in the greater Monrovia, California area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).

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