Despite the San Antonio winters usually not being that cold, you should never wait too long to replace an aging furnace. One reason is due to the risk of the furnace giving out all of a sudden, leaving you with no way to heat your house. Another reason is that older furnaces are often quite inefficient, resulting in higher than necessary heating costs. As to whether you should replace a furnace that’s 25 years old, the answer is almost certainly a yes. This is especially true if you have a 25-year-old gas furnace since gas furnaces rarely last this long, meaning your furnace could fail any day now.
If you have an electric furnace that’s 25 years old, you could potentially get a few more years out of it since electric units sometimes last for up to 30 years or so. Nonetheless, replacing either a gas or an electric furnace that’s this old can provide some major benefits. In this article, we’ll look at what these benefits are and discuss how to know when it’s time to replace a furnace and what to look for in a new furnace.
Benefits of Replacing Your Old Furnace
One major benefit of replacing your old furnace is that it will almost certainly save you money on your heating costs. A 20- to 25-year-old furnace is virtually guaranteed to be far less efficient than a new, modern furnace. This is especially the case if you have a gas furnace with a pilot light. Pilot lights were mostly phased out in the early 2010s as a result of them wasting energy. That’s one reason why newer furnaces are more energy efficient since they instead use an electronic igniter to light the burners.
Old furnaces also typically have various issues that prevent them from heating as effectively as they once did. That means they put out less heat, which further contributes to higher energy bills. If you have a new furnace, it will usually never need to stay on for more than 20 to 30 minutes at the most. The only time it will really need to run longer than that is when you turn the temperature back up after turning it down at night or when you’re at work.
A new furnace will also heat your home much more evenly and ensure it always stays consistently warm. The fact that an old furnace often doesn’t put out nearly as much heat as it should often leads to some parts of a house never getting quite as warm as you want. This issue is especially common in the rooms in a house that are furthest away from the furnace.
Signs You Should Schedule a Furnace Replacement
Although there’s always the potential for your furnace to suddenly die, almost every furnace issue is something an experienced HVAC technician can fix. Whether it’s really worth paying to repair an old furnace is a completely different question and usually comes down to its age and condition along with how much it will cost to fix the problem.
Generally speaking, it’s probably not worth repairing a furnace that’s 15-20 years old unless it only needs a minor repair like replacing the flame sensor or a faulty gas valve. Even then it may not be worth it since a furnace this age will often end up requiring frequent repairs. Repairing an older electric furnace can potentially be worth it since most of the common repairs don’t cost nearly as much as it does to repair certain issues with a gas furnace.
While frequent repairs are usually a sign that a furnace is near the end of its life and you should probably have it replaced, there are other signs to watch for as well. One is if it now takes your furnace much longer to heat your house than it used to. Similarly, installing a new furnace is a smart decision if your heating costs keep increasing year after year. This often happens as a result of the furnace not being professionally serviced every year, but it can also just mean that the furnace is no longer capable of heating as effectively as it should.
What to Look for When Choosing a New Furnace
No matter whether you’re in the market for a new gas furnace or an electric unit, the most important thing is that you get one that’s the correct size for your house. One reason is that a furnace that’s either too big or too small will almost always have a shorter lifespan than a correctly sized unit.
Oversized furnaces usually have issues with short cycling, which means they only stay on for maybe 10 minutes at a time. This results in the furnace cycling on and off more times a day than it should and it experiencing more wear and tear. Undersized furnaces also suffer more wear and tear since they end up running for more hours every day as a result of not putting out sufficient heat. The increased wear and tear also means an undersized or oversized furnace will usually break down more frequently. One final issue is that you’ll have to pay more to heat your home than you should if your furnace isn’t the correct size. All of these reasons are why you should make sure to hire an experienced, reputable HVAC company since they will perform what’s known as a heating load calculation to accurately determine what size furnace you need.
You also need to think carefully about whether a gas or an electric furnace is the better option since each one has some advantages as well as drawbacks. An electric furnace can be a good option in Texas since it will typically cost less to install and last longer. While it will be more expensive to run than a gas furnace, your heating costs still shouldn’t be that high since the furnace usually won’t need to run that much.
The main advantages of a gas furnace are that it will heat your home much more effectively and allow you to save on your energy bills. The main concern is that gas furnaces can sometimes be a safety hazard since there is a bigger risk of them starting a fire compared to electric furnaces. There is also a chance a gas furnace could result in carbon monoxide leaking out into your home, which isn’t the case with an electric furnace.
If you need help deciding whether it’s time to replace your old furnace or with choosing a new one, turn to the experts at Rosenberg Plumbing & Air. We’ve been providing trustworthy heating services as well as air conditioning and plumbing for residential and commercial customers in San Antonio, TX, for more than three decades. Our dedication to excellence has earned us a strong reputation as one of the best HVAC and plumbing companies in the area. No matter whether it’s a new installation, repairs or maintenance, you can count on us to perform safe, quality work at a fair price.
When it comes time to replace your furnace, we’ll make sure you fully understand all of your options and work with you to find the best one for your home or business. To schedule a consultation for your furnace replacement or to get any other help with your HVAC system or plumbing, contact us today.
Tags: Furnace Installation, Furnace Replacement