Your guide to fuel furnaces
If you’ve ever questioned “How does a gas furnace work? ”, you’re in the best place. Your Albuquerque heating services experts are here to answer your questions about these systems and clarify how gas furnaces work, what gas furnace components it’s good to learn about, and extra.
In this article, we’ll also discover how gas furnaces heat your property, what makes a gas furnace more (or less) efficient than another, and whether or not fuel furnaces are better than electric ones. It’s time to speak about furnaces.
How do gas furnaces work?
The fundamental premise behind gas furnaces is the creation of heat energy by combustion. Pure gasoline is the gas that gets combusted. As heat is generated, it’s then pushed out into your home by your air ducts by a machine known as the blower fan.
You’ve probably heard of “combustion” earlier than in a distinct context: your car. Your automobile options an inner combustion engine. Similar to your furnace, it combusts gas (on this case, gasoline) to generate heat power. After all, your car doesn’t really need heat power as the principle outcome-it as a substitute uses that vitality to push pistons.
In both your car and in your gas furnace, the combustion course of produces exhaust. That’s why your gas furnace has one thing called a heat exchanger. Basically, it works like this: the combustion course of inside your furnace occurs in a sealed chamber-the heat exchanger.
The heat generated warms up the heat exchanger, which then “exchanges” that heat power to the other side. All that point, the air inside your furnace and the air inside your house never come into contact. The combustion exhaust is then safely vented out of your property via the flue pipe.
With the heat exchanger warmed up, the blower fan kicks on. This cycle continues till the air in your home reaches the temperature you’ve set in your thermostat. It pulls in chilly air from inside your private home by means of the return register after which pushes it over the hot heat exchanger. Because the chilly air passes over it, it’s heated up.
Wagner: Your gas furnace consultants
Watch our video under to be taught extra about how your furnace operates.
Gas furnace elements
Your gas furnace features the next parts:
Temperature Control / Thermostat: Working in tandem, your home’s thermostat and the furnace’s temperature control inform the system when it needs to turn on and begin producing heat.
Fuel Burners: These burners have valves that release gas into the combustion process as extra heat is needed in your home.
Ignition Switch: That is what really combusts the fuel, creating a flame and releasing heat vitality to be absorbed by the heat exchanger. If your furnace isn’t turning on when you set the thermostat, it could be an issue with the ignition swap-you’ll need to contact us for furnace restore.
Heat Exchanger: As described above, the heat exchanger is designed to be heated up so that chilly air can be pushed over it, warming the air in your house. By the way in which, when you ever smell gasoline when your furnace is running, it may very well be because of a cracked heat exchanger. Turn off your furnace and call us right away.
Blower Fan: This fan pulls chilly air from inside your private home and pushes it over the heat exchanger, rapidly warming that air.
Flue: Also referred to as an exhaust, this pipe connects to the furnace and runs to the skin, carrying exhaust gases in it.
What makes a gas furnace efficient?
While all fuel furnaces operate in the identical approach, some are much more environment friendly than others. Let’s start by speaking about Annual Gasoline Utilization Effectivity (AFUE). AFUE is used to measure how efficient one furnace is compared to another.
You can use a furnace’s AFUE ranking to judge whether or not or not it’s roughly efficient than one other gas furnace. This distinction is essential: for reasons we’ll clarify beneath, electric furnaces typically have larger AFUE scores, but that doesn’t always imply you’re getting an awesome value.
Presently, the minimum effectivity customary for brand spanking new furnaces in the United States is 80%. High-efficiency gasoline furnaces can reach up to 98.5% AFUE. Listed here are simply among the ways a furnace might be extra environment friendly:
Variable-Pace Heating: These furnaces can run at totally different speeds, allowing them to “shift” up or down in pace depending on how much heat is needed at any given time. This implies they will run extra effectively and higher maintain a consistent temperature in the home.
Twin Heat Exchangers: Some high-effectivity fashions feature two heat exchangers, which implies that generated heat is distributed quicker into the home. This implies the furnace ends up running for much less time, saving you money.
Smart Controls: When paired with a wise thermostat, excessive-efficiency furnaces can strategically preheat the home to optimize comfort and scale back the period of time the system has to run and the amount of gas it in the end has to use.
Over your complete life of the system, your furnace’s effectivity actually makes a difference. It’s essential to keep that in thoughts when looking for furnaces: vitality-efficient furnaces would possibly cost extra upfront, but you’ll end up saving that after which some over the subsequent 15-20 years. A 10% distinction in AFUE can equate to hundreds or even 1000’s of dollars.
What makes gas furnaces completely different from electric ones?
Fuel versus electric furnaces: it’s a query that has confused homeowners for a few years. However, the differences between the 2 forms of furnaces really go far additional than that. From the names alone, you may most likely infer that gas furnaces use gas and electric furnaces use electricity.
In contrast to fuel furnaces, electric furnaces don’t use combustion-the combination of gas and flame-to generate heat. As a substitute, they create heat vitality by running electricity by way of wiring, turning that wiring purple-scorching and releasing heat energy in the method.
From there, the blower fan pushes that heated air into your property. Picture a supersized model of a toaster, and you’ve in all probability received a good suggestion of how an electric furnace works-no toast included, after all!
Are gas furnaces cheaper to function than electric fashions? The answer is considerably complex: whereas gasoline furnaces are technically less environment friendly than electric furnaces, natural gasoline is commonly cheaper than electricity.
In most cases, gas furnaces come out ahead. In fact, that’s only if you have already got a natural gasoline connection-should you don’t have a gas hookup at your property, you’ll either want so as to add one or persist with an electric model.
Get a new furnace put in by Wagner
At Wagner, we set up new fuel furnaces here in Albuquerque. For many years, Carrier has been recognized for their excessive-quality, excessive-effectivity fuel furnaces. We’re proud to be a Provider Temperature Robust Gold Dealer.
If you’re in search of a brand new heating system for your private home, contact our crew for a free in-residence estimate. We’ll go over your options, answer your questions, and help find the correct system for your house.
