What size furnace do you need?
The right amount of heat in your home is very important, an oversized furnace can waste a lot of energy and a lot of your money in the process – and an under sized furnace will not be able to heat your home to the necessary level for you and your family to be comfortable.
Sometimes it’s not just a matter of replacing your existing furnace with a furnace that’s exactly the same size because the methods of sizing a furnace appropriately have changed quite a bit over the last several years; it’s very possible that your current furnace may be oversized for the application.
Furnaces today also operate much more efficiently than furnaces from twenty, ten or even five years ago, so that could also contribute to what size unit you would require for your home.
Your Furnace Size depends on many Factors
So many different variables can contribute to the size and type of furnace that you will need to adequately heat your home. Things like geographic location; overall square footage, level and type of insulation and the heat loss through old windows, unsealed chimneys and holes where pipes and wires come into your home can all be major contributing factors to the size of heating unit you need to heat your home.
The design of your current heating system and the layout of your home can both be major contributing factors to the size of furnace you need as well. For example, if you have split level home with two operating zones to control your heat and there are only occupants of one zone at any given time (like upstairs bedrooms being occupied at night and remaining empty during the day controlled by one zone), this could mean that you only need a smaller BTU furnace despite having a higher overall square footage. Having two or more controlling zones can play a very large part in determining exactly what size furnace is needed for a home.
Blindly basing the size of a furnace on any one of these factors alone can be a big mistake, many contractors who come into your home to bid on the job of replacing your furnace will want to base the size of the new unit on the square footage of your home alone because this is the easiest way to get a general idea of your homes needs. The problem is – that the square footage alone will only give a very general idea of what size furnace your home needs and by going this route you’ll often get a furnace that’s either one size too big or one size too small (at least) which will either have you wasting a bunch of money unnecessarily, or not heating your home enough to live comfortably.
Go by the Numbers
In order to get a furnace that’s properly sized, you should have a company come out to do a heat loss calculation on your home. The heat loss calculation is the only true way to determine exactly what size furnace you need to heat your home thoroughly and efficiently, and it’s a quick and simple process.
A qualified technician will come out to your home and using a variety of equipment will take into account the heat loss caused by all of the aforementioned factors – which will give the true measurement of power necessary from your new furnace.
It’s not just about heating your home efficiently either, though the cost savings of having an appropriately sized boiler could be dramatic, different sized furnaces come with different sized price tags. If a contractor estimates that you need a 120,000 BTU when in reality a 95,000 BTU furnace would do the job – the initial investment of the job could be several hundred dollars more – causing you to lose a substantial amount of money up front and then to continually lose money with each and every energy bill.
The size of your current furnace and the square footage of your home alone tell you very little when it comes to sizing a new furnace for your home – to get a truly accurate gauge of the size furnace you need a home heat loss calculation must be performed by a qualified professional.
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How to make your Fireplace Efficient
The fireplace has long been the favorite spot to gather in the American home. A place for warmth, the fireplace adds ambience, sparking memories that are to be treasured. With all the benefits that a fireplace can bring, there are some major downsides that if not addressed can cause a love for the fireplace to wane.
With soaring energy costs, the chief negative of having a fireplace has to be its inefficiency. When there is a fire burning, the fireplace does indeed radiate warmth in its general vicinity, but it also creates a convection current that can actually pull conditioned air out of the room and up the chimney causing your furnace to work overtime. When the fire is not burning, the fireplace has a damper which is supposed to block inside air from escaping and outside air from invading. The problem is that the damper is usually made of metal (this type of damper technology hasn’t changed in over 100 years!) and has no seal, which means that the damper is incredibly inefficient.
Your home has a dirty little secret – the fireplace that is designed to warm your house is actually doing the opposite and costing you hundreds of dollars in energy costs. Don’t fret – with a little investment of time and money, you can turn that inefficient fireplace into a powerhouse heater that will reduce your energy bills and add even more charm to your existing fireplace.
The following is a list of 4 things that you can do yourself to drastically reduce the heating costs associated with the inefficiency of your fireplace.
1. Top Sealing Dampers replace the fireplace throat damper and are installed at the top of the chimney. The top sealing damper has a seal that acts like a storm door keeping the expensive conditioned air inside the house and the outside air – outside. This principle works year round, whether you’re heating or cooling your house. This product can be purchased online and is easily installed by either a homeowner or a handyman.
2. A fireback is a cast iron plate that is placed at the back of your fireplace. Its purpose is to protect the back wall from fire damage and it usually features a design that adds to the homes decor. The fireback improves the fireplaces efficiency by absorbing the heat from the fire and radiating the heat back into the room.
3. A Fireplace Heater pulls fresh air from the room, circulates it through a chamber that is heated by the fire and then blows the heated air back into the room. These heaters are closed systems so no smoke from the fireplace is invading the home. Depending on which kind you purchase, these heaters can make a significant difference in your homes temperature, even heating a full room on its own. Specific fireplace heaters can be installed with fireplace glass doors which will kick your cost savings up another notch.
4. Fireplace Glass Doors will likely carry the largest investment, but you can reduce some of that cost by doing some of the work yourself. There are a number of fireplace doors that can be purchased online and come with easy to install instructions. The fireplace glass door creates a barrier between the living space and the chimney, thus reducing the area that your furnace will have to heat. This alone is a good reason to install these doors, but it’s not the only reason. Fireplace glass doors offer another level of safety for the home by protecting children and pets from the fire. If you have a wood burning fireplace you will want to purchase the screen mesh that is designed to go with the fireplace glass doors. This will allow you to have the doors open while the fire is burning and still have your home protected from sparks and embers. Fireplace glass doors are now being manufactured with modern designs and really add beauty and charm to the fireplace.
If you’re handy, all of these suggestions are easy to accomplish. In addition, all of the products, while difficult to find locally, can easily be purchased online. If you’re concerned about high energy costs but you want to keep your fireplace, then it’s time to plug up the holes in your monthly energy budget by plugging up the holes in your fireplace.
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Heating Tips
Here are some low- and no-cost ideas of things you can do to reduce the amount of energy it takes to heat your house.
- Make sure heat vents and return air vents aren’t covered.
- Change your fiber furnace filter twice a year and clean it monthly during the heating season.
- Set the thermostat at a maximum of 68 degrees.
- Set back the thermostat a maximum of 10 degrees at night, unless you have a heat pump or cable heat. Save up to three percent on heating costs for every degree your thermostat is lowered.
- Consider installing an automatic setback thermostat for your furnace.
If you have zonal heating (thermostats in each room) you can turn down the heat to 50 or 55 degrees and close doors. - If you suspect your thermostat is not accurate, place a thermometer nearby and see if they record the same number.
- Don’t use the oven to heat your kitchen.
- Weatherstrip and caulk around all doors and windows.
- Keep dampers closed when fireplace isn’t in use. Unblocked, a good chimney can draw up to 20 percent of the warm air out of the house each hour.
- In cold weather, keep drapes and shades open on sunny days and close them at night.
- Repair broken or cracked glass and putty older windows; check to see that windows close properly and window locks pull sashes together.
- Make sure doors close properly; repair or replace non-working doorknobs, latches and striker plates.
- Caulk foundation cracks and openings. Make sure kitchen and bathroom vent dampers close properly.
- Install automatic setback thermostats that adjust the heat to your schedule.
- Routinely have a professional contractor perform a pre-season check-up. Having your air conditioner inspected and tuned can save you money on costs and prevent premature breakdown.
- Schedule your tune-ups early in the spring. You’ll have more scheduling flexibility, and you will be less likely to experience problems during warmer weather.
- Clean your drain lines: The hoses connected to your furnace can develop “build up” inside them over time. If it gets bad enough, water can back up into the furnace and cause damage.
- Change the batteries in your digital thermostat annually: People forget that their digital thermostat has batteries in it. If you get in the habit of changing the batteries annually, you can eliminate a no-heat situation.
For more Heating Tips visit www.jcjmechanicalinc.com or call 647 833-8116
