Why You Should Insist On A Modulating, Condensing Furnace

Posted on: 5 May 2016

The conventional furnace will use one heat exchanger and a one-speed fan motor to push heat into your home. This system will provide adequate but inefficient heating to your home. For years, this was the only option that allowed furnace designers to provide a way for the noxious fumes created by burning a gas to safely exit your home. Today, there is an option that provides improved efficiency while still properly disposing of these gases. For the best performance, you should ask for a modulating, condensing furnace. 

What Does a Condensing Furnace Do?

A conventional or standard furnace will use one heat exchanger to extract just enough heat out of the gases flowing through it so that there is enough heat left to allow the gases to rise out of a vent pipe and exit your home. The problem with this approach is that it does not fully tap the available heat in the gases. Thus, a conventional furnace will top out at about 83% efficient. A condensing furnace will improve on this efficiency by using a second heat exchanger to extract so much heat from exhaust gases that the water vapor in them will condense back to a liquid and the other gases will then dissolve into the water. This exhaust can then drain out of your system through a drain pipe. Due to these design improvements, a condensing furnace will boost your efficiency to at least 90%. 

What Does a Modulating Furnace Do?

If you have a condensing furnace with a one-speed blower, it will only be able run at full capacity. Thus, every time the furnace comes on, it will run at full blast and shut off once it has heated your home to your desired temperature. The problem with this approach is that it similar to gunning your car between stoplights. A variable-speed motor will allow your furnace to attune its output to the demand for heat in your home. Thus, it will run for longer periods of time at a lower output to maintain a consistent temperature in your home. Not only will this boost your efficiency to around 98%, but it will also decrease furnace noise and improve comfort. 

Whether you are installing a new furnace in your home or replacing a grossly inefficient furnace, you should know what to look for to get the best value for your money. A condensing furnace will cost more than other models on the market, but it will help you to save money over the long run by decreasing your operating costs. Thus, the wisest choice for a furnace is to insist on a modulating, condensing furnace. 

For more information, contact Advance Care Heating & AC LLC or a similar company.

Share

Lowering Your HVAC Expenses

After we purchased our very first home, I realized that I was really struggling with paying for the heating and cooling costs. We were spending much, much more money every month than we thought we were going to, and it was really difficult to figure out what we should do. We thought long and hard about how to minimize our expenses, but we didn't really get anywhere until we talked with an HVAC contractor. He mentioned specific, actionable ways to lower our bill, such as programming our thermostat and using more of our ceiling fans. This blog is all about lowering your bill.

Latest Posts