How Much Can I Save By Upgrading My Furnace?
I thought that today we'd take a look at how you might be able to save money on a new furnace.
In order to determine if you could save money we first need to determine what kind of furnace you currently have.
STEP 1.
To be exact you need to understand your current furnace's efficiency.
The best way to tell if you are unsure is call a professional.
Beyond that we can use some estimates for our purposes.
If your furnace is more than 20 years old it is most likely 65% efficiency or less.
If it is between 10 to 20 years old (ie after 1990) then it must have an efficiency of 78% by law.
Potential Savings Furnace Age Potential Savings 20+ Years 30% 10 to 20 Years 18% Here's your quick guide to potential savings.
Keep in mind that this is assuming that your furnace is operating at peak performance.
If you haven't gotten maintenance on your furnace yet you should start there.
Most HVAC servicemen offer discounts on a replacement furnace that will at least pay for the cost of the maintenance.
In addition a professional can offer you better insight into what type of furnace you need and whether it is necessary.
STEP 2.
Ok, you knew it was coming.
The dreaded MATH part.
Don't worry, I'm going to slink us by this part with as little math as possible.
Sit tight, after this we get to the savings part.
(A-B)/A x C = Savings A - new furnace efficiency B - old furnace efficiency C - Yearly heating bills Eeek! I know.
I'll walk you through it.
For our purposes I will use a potential savings of 30% for the example and an average heating bill in Kansas of around $1,200.
OK here's the example: (95-60)/95 x 1200 = $442 So for our example you would save $442 per year on a new furnace.
WOW! Want More? Of course you do.
In order to get more we have to get more complicated though.
There are a whole host of options and features from programmable thermostats, whole house humidifiers, sealed combustion furnaces, power venting, heat pumps, etc.
etc.
All of these items can potentially increase your savings as well as increase the comfort level in your home.
As you can see there are lots of options.
This is also only an example of some of the options and features.
Thus far we have also only considered the efficiency of your furnace, not your homes efficiency at keeping the heat indoors.
We also haven't discussed things like "heating load", that's the amount of energy required to maintain a steady 65-degree temperature indoors.
My guess is by now your head is spinning with all of the options and potential.
My goal for this article was you to see that YES! you can save a significant amount on your heating bill.
I also wanted you to see that to really get a detailed estimate and squeeze all of the savings possible you need to call a heating and cooling expert.
My strong suggestion would be to schedule a maintenance of your furnace.
This will cost less than a hundred dollars and get a professional out to your house to examine your current system.
If it does need replaced in most cases you will even get the cost of the maintenance back and maybe more.
In order to determine if you could save money we first need to determine what kind of furnace you currently have.
STEP 1.
To be exact you need to understand your current furnace's efficiency.
The best way to tell if you are unsure is call a professional.
Beyond that we can use some estimates for our purposes.
If your furnace is more than 20 years old it is most likely 65% efficiency or less.
If it is between 10 to 20 years old (ie after 1990) then it must have an efficiency of 78% by law.
Potential Savings Furnace Age Potential Savings 20+ Years 30% 10 to 20 Years 18% Here's your quick guide to potential savings.
Keep in mind that this is assuming that your furnace is operating at peak performance.
If you haven't gotten maintenance on your furnace yet you should start there.
Most HVAC servicemen offer discounts on a replacement furnace that will at least pay for the cost of the maintenance.
In addition a professional can offer you better insight into what type of furnace you need and whether it is necessary.
STEP 2.
Ok, you knew it was coming.
The dreaded MATH part.
Don't worry, I'm going to slink us by this part with as little math as possible.
Sit tight, after this we get to the savings part.
(A-B)/A x C = Savings A - new furnace efficiency B - old furnace efficiency C - Yearly heating bills Eeek! I know.
I'll walk you through it.
For our purposes I will use a potential savings of 30% for the example and an average heating bill in Kansas of around $1,200.
OK here's the example: (95-60)/95 x 1200 = $442 So for our example you would save $442 per year on a new furnace.
WOW! Want More? Of course you do.
In order to get more we have to get more complicated though.
There are a whole host of options and features from programmable thermostats, whole house humidifiers, sealed combustion furnaces, power venting, heat pumps, etc.
etc.
All of these items can potentially increase your savings as well as increase the comfort level in your home.
As you can see there are lots of options.
This is also only an example of some of the options and features.
Thus far we have also only considered the efficiency of your furnace, not your homes efficiency at keeping the heat indoors.
We also haven't discussed things like "heating load", that's the amount of energy required to maintain a steady 65-degree temperature indoors.
My guess is by now your head is spinning with all of the options and potential.
My goal for this article was you to see that YES! you can save a significant amount on your heating bill.
I also wanted you to see that to really get a detailed estimate and squeeze all of the savings possible you need to call a heating and cooling expert.
My strong suggestion would be to schedule a maintenance of your furnace.
This will cost less than a hundred dollars and get a professional out to your house to examine your current system.
If it does need replaced in most cases you will even get the cost of the maintenance back and maybe more.
Source...