Professional solutions. Professional service.
The facts about furnaces.
If you are particularly cold natured, or live in an area where temperatures are at or below freezing for extended periods of time, a furnace may be the heating system for you.
A furnace is super simple. It draws air in from the living space, it heats it up and delivers it back out to warm the home. Modern furnaces are all forced air systems, and there are four configurations.
- Up-flow furnaces are placed in homes with basements.
- Horizontal flow furnaces are designed for homes with crawl spaces.
- Down-flow furnaces are for homes built on concrete slabs.
- Low Boy furnaces are placed in homes with basements, and have both ducts coming in to the top.
If you have an older home, you may even have a furnace that uses physics to distribute the air instead of employing a blower. That is, the cooled air sinks down into return vents and the heated air rises up into the living space through the ducts. Hot air rises, cold air sinks. It’s an incredibly efficient way to circulate air, but it doesn’t quite have the impact and immediate gratification of blower units.
However, that little physics lesson can help us understand why up-flow furnaces tend to have longer life spans than the others. When air in your home reaches its desired temperature and the thermostat shuts down the unit, the hot air in an up-flow model will dissipate its stored air quickly because it will rise out of the unit on its own. With the other models, heat collects and doesn’t allow the unit to cool down as fast, thus they incur more wear.
That’s something to think about if you’re building a new home. Another thing to consider is the heat source.
Gas furnaces are very common and use either natural gas or propane. With either fuel, the furnace works the same way. Gas enters into a chamber, is ignited by a pilot source and warms the air within a heat exchange chamber. The air is blown into the living space through heating ductwork and the exhaust gases are vented out of the home. The only difference is that natural gas is usually delivered via a municipal connection and propane generally comes from an on-site tank.
Fuel oil furnaces are very similar, however do require a great deal more maintainence. They have a fuel filter, nozel, photogenic eye, and electrodes that periodically need cleaned or replaced. Oil furnaces are the warmest of them all, and may be right for you if you are particularly cold blooded. Electric furnaces use heating elements, or strips, to warm the air instead of a fossil fuel source. Everything else works the same way.
As with all HVAC systems, air filtration is critical to effective heating and longevity. Make sure you change filters often and have your furnace professionally serviced on a regular basis. To find out what type of furnace best fits your home heating needs, contact BHC today.
|
