The Thought Of Replacing The Furnace Gives You The Shivers? Buying Tips To Ease Your Fears

Are you thinking about replacing the furnace in your northwest Arkansas home? If you are, it’s probably a good idea to do so before winter arrives. If you’re hesitating because replacing the furnace seems like it’s going to be a huge hassle, don’t. Check out the following tips to help make replacing your furnace a migraine-free affair.

How big should it be?
Sizing your furnace is an essential step in the purchase process. Buying a furnace that’s too small for your home means that it will struggle to heat your whole house. So why not just buy the biggest furnace available and call it a day? Because a furnace that’s too big will cycle on and off frequently, wasting energy and making a racket, while not providing even heating in your home or adequate air filtration. Have a local contractor do a heating load calculation on your home to determine how large your furnace should be.

Look for efficiency
You’ll want a furnace that not only does a good job of heating your home, but that does it efficiently as well. Look for the AFUE (annual fuel utilization efficiency) rating when comparing furnaces. AFUE uses a percentage to show how much fuel the furnace actually uses to create heat. High-efficiency furnaces sports AFUE ratings of 90 percent and above, meaning they use nearly all of their fuel to heat your home. Keep in mind that furnaces that carry higher AFUE ratings are more expensive, though lower energy costs will defray much or all of that expense. Your trusted HVAC contractor will help you decide what AFUE rating will provide the best cost benefits in our particular climate.

Now what?
So you know how big it should be and you’ve whittled your options down to the more efficient models. How do you choose from here? Ask friends, family or your contractor for a brand recommendation. Do some research on the Internet. Another way to decide is by the manufacturer’s warranty. The longer the warranty, the more secure you can feel about its design and longevity.

Follow these tips when replacing the furnace in your northwest Arkansas home. For more information about purchasing or installing a new furnace, please contact us at Paschal Heat, Air & Geothermal.

Our goal is to help educate our customers in Northwest Arkansas about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems).  For more information about replacing the furnace and other HVAC topics, download our free Home Comfort Resource guide.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock