Top 5 Considerations Before Buying A New Furnace
If you have an older furnace and your energy bill keeps creeping up every winter, it may be time to consider replacing it with a new, high-efficiency model. Not only will a new furnace be more quiet, reliable, and effective at maintaining comfortable temperatures throughout your home, it can reduce your energy bill by over 40%!
Here are the top 5 things you’ll want to consider before buying a new furnace.
1. Age
Age may just be a number, but when it comes to your heating system, it really does matter. If your furnace is over 20 years old, chances are you are spending 50% more on your energy bill than you need to be!
In addition to offering better ventilation, airflow, and temperature consistency throughout your house, a new high-efficiency furnace will help you save over the long run while reducing your environmental footprint.
2. Efficiency
Furnaces are graded with what’s called an AFUE rating, or Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency rating. The AFUE is the percentage of the fuel that your furnace transforms into heat during the year. Older furnaces tend to score an AFUE of only around 65 percent. By comparison, today’s high-efficiency furnaces rate as high as 98.5 percent — meaning there is very little wasted fuel in heating your home.
When looking for a new furnace, you should aim for one that has an AFUE rating of at least 95% and is EnerGuide and Energy Star-certified. Note that in order to qualify for most government rebates, the new furnace must be at least 96% efficient.
3. Quality
Though most modern-day furnaces strike a great balance of quality, durability, and affordability, a few brands definitely stand out. In our experience, Trane, Runtru, Tempstar, and Keeprite offer the best quality to price ratio, along with a rock-solid 10-year warranty on most of their products.
Certain brands like Lennox and Carrier will tend to cost more and, although they are certainly good products, you’re often paying a premium for the name. It’s important to note that in the grand scheme of things, the brand name represents only about 30% of the overall performance. The remaining 70% comes from proper installation, which leads us to our next point…
4. Installation
You may have the latest and greatest furnace on the market, but if it isn’t installed properly, you can kiss any chances of seeing significant savings goodbye. A shoddy installation by a contractor who isn’t up to code is likely to cause many issues down the road, and it could be dangerous.
At TAME Group, we stand by our work and offer a minimum 1-year warranty on all our installations to ensure that you are completely satisfied with your new furnace. Furthermore, we offer add-ons, such as humidifiers, to help control the humidity throughout your house. This is a must if you have wooden features such as hardwood floors, windows, doors, or even a piano to preserve.
5. Regular maintenance
Annual inspection and maintenance will pay huge dividends in extending the life of your furnace and ensuring it runs at peak efficiency. You wouldn’t own a car for ten years without getting regular oil changes, would you? Your furnace is no different! A well-maintained furnace will last longer and save you money.
Regularly changing the air filter on your furnace will go a long way to keeping it working efficiently, as will regular duct cleaning. If your filter or ducts get clogged, your airflow will be hampered, and your furnace will have to work harder for poorer results.
Conclusion
As a general rule of thumb, you should consider repairing your furnace if it is under 15 years old and the cost of undergoing repairs is less than half the cost of replacement. On the other hand, you should consider replacing your furnace if it is more than 15 years old and requires a costly repair to maintain efficiency.
We hope that these 5 considerations have been helpful in informing your decision to invest in your heating system. If you have questions, contact TAME Group, and our team will be happy to help.
