How to Know When Your Furnace Needs to Be Replaced
Whether you live in the rural south or the heart of a northern state, you are going to need a reliable furnace when winter rolls around. Unfortunately, most homeowners don’t spend a lot of time working to maintain their furnace. So, when their furnace begins to break down it can come as a complete surprise. A furnace breaking down right when winter rolls around is nothing short of frustrating. Not only will a broken furnace be expensive to replace but you could also be left in the cold until the replacement is brought in! As a result, it is important to be able to notice the potential signs that your furnace may be failing!
Signs & Symptoms That You Need a New Furnace
A furnace isn’t like our car. We don’t get to see it daily. The only time that we ever interact with our furnace is when we turn the system on. Even then, we only use our heating system sparingly until winter rolls around. In order to catch all the potential signs of impending furnace failure, you really need to know what you are looking for. Fortunately, if you are worried about a potential furnace replacement soon, it is easy to identify the signs that your concerns are warranted. Let’s break down the potential symptoms that will send you scrambling for a good heating and air company near you. Let’s begin with some simple signs.
Your Furnace Is Old
With a well-maintained heating system, you can expect to get roughly 20 years of effective service life. The older your furnace, the more likely it becomes that you will run into increasingly serious problems. Additionally, older furnaces are rarely environmentally friendly, and they are increasingly unreliable in terms of your month-to-month energy expenditures. Check the age of your furnace first. If your heating system is older than 20 years, you might need to start shopping.
Strange Noises
Once you’ve lived in a building for a while, you get used to the sounds that it makes. Before I would try and hire any HVAC near me, I’d pay attention to the sounds that my furnace was making. If the sounds have notably changed, then I know there might be a problem beginning to manifest. There are a few specific sounds that you should keep your ears open for that could denote potentially serious issues. Those serious sounds include rattling, squealing, and heavy clunking sounds. If you hear any of those sounds, you might want to call a qualified HVAC team so that they can inspect your entire system.
Repairs Exceed 50% off Furnace Value
A neat rule of thumb to remember when dealing with furnace repairs is that you never want to pay for more than 50% of the value of a new furnace. If repairs on your old furnace exceed that 50% threshold, you’d likely be better off purchasing a brand-new furnace. If you are consistently paying for small repairs, those add up. Really, you just need to keep value in mind when you are taking care of your old heating system. At some point, the value that you are getting from frequent small repairs is going to really supersede the value of a new, reliable furnace installation.
Your Furnace Isn’t Energy Efficient
The final sign that you need to replace your furnace revolves around the energy efficiency of the old unit. If your old furnace is truly energy efficient, you are going to start seeing rising rates on your utility bill. While a monthly utility bill won’t exceed the cost of a brand-new furnace, these utility bills really begin to add up. Modern technology has come a long way over the years and 20-year-old furnaces are obviously not going to be the pinnacle of industrial engineering. Additionally, new energy-efficient furnaces are also increasingly coming with rebates due to a push for more eco-friendly appliances. If you have a dinosaur of a furnace, maybe consider replacing the whole unit so that you can move forward without concern.
Replacing your furnace is a tall task. After all, you are talking about the core heating system of your property. These signs and symptoms should give you enough heads up that you need to get the job done. Call on a local HVAC team that you trust in order to get the furnace replaced!