Stop Paying for Heating Repair and Replace Your Furnace

An inoperable furnace can be more than a nuisance in the winter time. It can be dangerous. Sometimes heating repair in Loganville can get your unit up and running again in no time at all, but sometimes you may need to replace the unit. If a new furnace is in your future, here are a few basic things to consider before you buy.

Types of Furnaces    

Gas Furnaces

Natural gas is a popular way to heat the home. It is efficient and thought to be a more reliable heating source. If you live in a community that doesn't have a natural gas supply that is piped directly into the home like electricity or water supplies, you may still have options if you want to install a gas furnace.

Some master-planned communities will allow you to install a propane tank on your property to fuel the furnace. Tanker trucks fill the tanks with gas about once a year depending on how much gas you use. Colder winters may require an additional fill-up.

Electric Heating

Whether you've always had electric heat, or you're tired of the high cost of propane or natural gas, electric heating is a tried and true way to keep a home heated. If you've had the same furnace for years, you may be surprised when you start shopping that you have a number of high-efficiency options. In a case like this, it is recommended that you work with an HVAC specialist to help you decide which kind of unit is best for your home. This specialist will look at the size of your home to make this determination.

How the Heat Is Distributed

There are really only two ways that a furnace distributes heat to the living areas of the house: forced air or circulating water.

Forced Air

This is the most popular style of heat distribution. Air is moved over the heating element by a fan. The air is heated up and pushed to the rooms through a series of ducts and vents. Many newer homes will set up this type of system because it can be linked with an air conditioning unit to use the same fan, ducts, and vents to cool as well as heat. But, the ducts and vents can lose air if seams are not sealed correctly, and some of the heat energy escapes the air, especially when moving to rooms farther away from the unit.

Hydronic Systems

These systems use hot water to heat the rooms up. A boiler, fueled by natural gas, propane, or heating oil, heats water to a boil. In the old days, hot water was circulated to radiators in each room that would emit the heat into the room. Today's hydronic systems use baseboard units to radiate the heat from the water or pipes that can be wound back and forth on the floor where the heat energy is radiated upwards. This style works best with tile or stone floors because they will continue to radiate heat requiring less energy to heat the room. One of the biggest advantages of a hydronic system is it can be combined with or replace a traditional water heater, further reducing energy costs. And, it can be more efficient because less energy is lost from the boiler to rooms because there are individual tubes running to each room instead of one set that circulates the same water to all the rooms.

Replacement Costs

Like most things, cost is usually the determining factor for which style of furnace a homeowner may choose, but there are different costs with each. There is the initial cost for the unit itself as well as method of heat delivery. That is why most people generally stay with the style they have. It is a lot more expensive to replace all the ducts of a forced air unit with the copper or plastic tubing needed for a hydronic system even though the hydronic system may require less energy over the course of the year to heat the water.

If you're tired of paying for heating repair in Loganville, talk with your HVAC specialist to find out if replacing your broken furnace is the better option.

 

Source : articlesbase.com