Your Furnace in Santa Rosa: Prepare Now for Cooler Weather

Your Furnace in Santa Rosa: Prepare Now for Cooler Weather written by Chris Carpenter of Affordable Heating and Air in Santa Rosa

Here we are in the hottest 2 months of summer, such as they are here, and I am going to blow you away by talking furnaces in Santa Rosa. Some of you have already been using your furnace as the temperatures dip during the night or if we have had a “weather event.” If so, I have to ask you—is your furnace going to make it this fall and winter seasons when it really gets cool here in Santa Rosa?

Just the facts:

• For most of the cooler states heating is the largest energy expense in most homes where it can account for 35-50% of the home’s annual energy bills. You can determine your costs if you know the AFUE of your current furnace.
• What does AFUE mean? The annual fuel utilization efficiency (AFUE) is a measure of the seasonal performance for your furnace. What that means is that this is a percentage of how efficiently your furnace uses fuel to heat your house.
• If you have a furnace with an AFUE rating of 70%, then for every dollar you feed your furnace in fuel, only $0.70 of that dollar actually goes to heating your house. The other $0.30 is lost.
• How do you know what your current furnace AFUE rating is? You will find it on the furnace faceplate. If it’s not there look for the model or serial number or it might be on the outside compressor. You can then go to the manufacturer’s website with the model and serial number and find your furnace’s AFUE rating.
• Now go check your winter energy bills from last winter. You know the percentage rate. You know what you spent. You now can calculate how much of what you paid went out the window. Is your furnace in Santa Rosa costing you more than it could?

Today’s furnaces are between 80% AFUE to 98% AFUE. Traditional “power combustion” furnaces are 80-82% ALUE. And what happens to the rest of that percentage? The other percent is lost in the combustion process your furnace in Santa Rosa uses to create heat.

Condensing furnace models at above 90% AFUE have a system that recaptures some the wasted heat in traditional systems by condensing escaping water vapor.

Comparison Shopping for a furnace in Santa Rosa

Should you buy a new one? Is your furnace here in Santa Rosa having issues? Even if it isn’t, you might want to look at a chart of the difference in monthly costs of the AFUE of an existing system and the AFUE of a new system:

High Bills or Double Digit Savings?

If the percentage of the AFUE of your existing furnace is high, as compared to a percentage of a new unit, you will not be saving enough money to make it worth buying a new unit unless your current furnace is giving you a lot of trouble. On the other hand, if your furnace is only working at 50% and you were considering one with a 95% AFUE, you would save considerable money in buying the new one. In fact you would make back the cost of the new one in savings in a few years.

Taking this one step further, if you have a furnace in Santa Rosa with an AFUE of 70% and you upgrade to one with a 95% AFUE rating, you can save $26.32 a year for every $100 you spend on fuel. That is a whopping savings of 26%. What percentage rate is your savings account earning? Your investments?

You might want to consider this information to help you decide whether to repair your old furnace in Santa Rosa or buy a new one. If you would like to discuss this more before the seasonal change, please click here or call me at 707-953-3345.