All About Gas Furnaces

Are gas furnaces safe?

Well, another winter is about to wrap up and summer is coming. If you had heating issues this past winter, now is the time to think about replacing your current heating method with a new gas furnace. If you’re not familiar with gas furnaces, you’ll have concerns and questions, which we hope to ease and answer here. 

Natural gas is one of the cleanest, safest, and most environmentally friendly energy source we have today.  Natural gas is used in homes and businesses every day for cooking, heating water, and for winter heating. 

There have been instances over the years with explosions and fires contributed to natural gas, so naturally, having a gas furnace can make somebody nervous. The usual concerns are gas leaks that result in carbon monoxide poisoning and other combustion hazards, and while those are concerns are often exaggerated, taking precautions is smart. 

So, can a gas furnace explode?

Sure,  but just about any type of heating process can either explode or catch on fire. Here are some safety tips to follow when using a gas furnace that eliminates that possibility: 

• Safety Features: Gas furnace manufacturers today design their gas furnaces with safety in mind, first and foremost. They now have built-in safety features that shuts the gas flow off in case of any malfunction that is potentially hazardous. Additionally, they install switches to shut the system off if it overheats.

• Early Warnings: Today, if your home has natural gas, you should install CO detectors (carbon monoxide) in every room. Some smoke alarms come with CO detectors too, but if yours are smoke detector only, a CO detector is inexpensive when you consider the life-saving feature they offer. Because natural gas is colorless, odorless, and tasteless, you can’t depend on your own personal senses to catch a natural gas leak from a gas furnace or any appliance.

• Routine Maintenance: To improve gas furnace safety more, regular routine gas furnace maintenance is a must, that can’t be emphasize and repeated too much. All the appliances in your home need maintenance, like the HVAC system, and perhaps you can delay those maintenance checks. With a gas furnace though, you don’t want to miss these routine processes. A professional technician will inspect the furnace thoroughly looking for any possible safety issues like a cracked heat exchanger or a leak in the gas line.

Is a gas furnace expensive to run?

In comparison to running an electric furnace, a gas furnace is cheaper because natural gas itself is cheaper than electricity. In fact, the cost of natural gas has declined in recent  years where electricity has either stayed the same or increased. 

Is gas furnace cheaper than electric?

It is important to choose the heating source best for your home. Between an electric furnace and gas furnace, the initial costs, the maintenance requirements, and the operating costs are all different. You need to make sure with either one to get the proper size for your home so that you aren’t heating enough or heating too much. 

An electric furnace will generally cost less to purchase and is less expensive to have installed. You can expect prices up to $2,500 with installation adding up to $1,500 or more. A gas furnace purchase can start as low as $3,000 and go up, depending on whether you choose a high efficiency model.  The installation of a gas furnace can start around $4,000 to purchase and the cost of installation starting around $1500.00.  

While and electric furnace has a higher average efficiency with lower initial purchase and install, the cost of operating an electric furnace is higher than a gas furnace. Even if the cost of natural gas increases as the EIA (Energy Information Administration) anticipates, the cost of natural gas will still be less than the cost of electricity.

What is the average life expectancy of a gas furnace?

The average lifespan of a gas furnace that has had the routine maintenance recommended is up to thirty years. Some have been known to last forty years or longer even. The routine maintenance is a must to get the most life expectancy possible. 

Is a high efficiency furnace worth it?

When you are considering a high-efficiency gas furnace purchase, you have to get past the initial price shock and think about how much a high-efficiency gas furnace will save you in the long run. Gas furnace efficiency is measured in annual fuel utilization efficiency, AFUE. This is how the efficiency is determined when converting fuel to heat. 

A gas furnace that is 20 years old will typically have an AFUE rating of sixty percent. This means you’re losing as much as 40 percent of the fuel it is burning. Why? The pilot light is a big waste of gas because it stays on in the older gas furnaces. 

The AFUE rating for high-efficiency gas furnaces are as high as 98.5 percent because they have either an electric starter  or a hot surface igniter. There is no pilot light, so no waste of gas. Today, gas furnaces are built with state-of-the-art heat exchangers that uses the exhaust warmth too and the gas furnace doesn’t have to work as hard, saving over one percent of the energy. 

So, we’ve told you how safe natural gas furnace can be and advised you the things to do that keep it safe. What about your existing gas furnace though? How do you know if your furnace is dying? These are some questions to ask yourself if you’re considering a new gas furnace: 

• How old is the current unit?

• Have your gas bills increased more this winter than expected?

• How many repairs has it need over the past two years?

• Is it making different, strange noises and sounds?

• Is it keeping the house comfortable without having to move the thermostat?

• Does it have a blue or yellow flame?

The most important question you should be asking is can an old furnace make you sick? The answer is absolutely!  An older gas furnace heating systems can be faulty, and you do not realize it. From carbon monoxide poisoning and nitrogen dioxide. Call (240) 640-6578 today for your gas furnace service in Lanham, MD.