If you need to replace the heating in your house or are building a new home, you need to think carefully about what option you choose. Electric heating options, like a heat pump or electric furnace, aren’t a bad choice for a home with milder winters, but a gas furnace is generally the best option in Billings. In this article, we’ll compare gas furnaces to the other options to show you the benefits a furnace provides and why it’s the best choice for your home.
Effective Heating Even in Extreme Cold
Gas furnaces are the most common heating option in Montana and other places that experience cold winters. The main reason is that a gas furnace heats a home quickly and has no issues keeping the building comfortably warm, no matter how cold it gets outside.
One of the main reasons gas furnaces can heat so effectively is that they typically heat the air flowing through them to around 120 to 140 degrees. The air flowing out of your supply vents won’t be quite this hot since some heat loss always occurs as the air travels through the building’s air ducts. Nonetheless, a furnace will always produce sufficient hot air to prevent the building from ever getting too cold. Electric furnaces and heat pumps can also heat fairly effectively, but generally only heat air to 90 to 100 degrees. That means it will always take quite a bit longer for these types of units to maintain the temperature in the building.
In most cases where a gas furnace maintains the temperature and doesn’t need to increase it by more than 1 to 2 degrees, the heating system will only run for 15 to 20 minutes an hour. If you turn your thermostat down by 5 to 7 degrees at night to save energy, a gas furnace will run for about an hour to restore your home’s temperature in the morning.
Alternatively, due to their lower heat output, an electric furnace or heat pump will need to run for 30 to 45 minutes an hour to maintain your indoor temperature or even longer during extremely cold weather. On the other hand, they must run for two or three hours in the morning to bring your home’s temperature back to normal if you turned the heat down the night before.
Reduced Heating Costs
When it comes to energy efficiency and heating costs, comparing gas furnaces to other options like electric furnaces and heat pumps isn’t exactly straightforward. Modern gas furnaces range between 80% and 98.5% efficient, meaning some energy they use is wasted. Electric furnaces are generally 100% efficient since they directly convert electricity into heat using electric resistance heating coils.
The only issue is that electric resistance heating requires massive amounts of electricity. In places like Billings, you’d typically need at least a 15 to 20-kilowatt electric furnace to have even a chance of keeping your house sufficiently warm. Heating a home with an electric furnace of this size could cost you a few thousand dollars more per year compared to heating your house with a gas furnace.
When it comes to heat pumps, you will find plenty of information saying that most heat pumps are at least two to three times more energy efficient than gas furnaces. However, this information is slightly misleading. For one thing, the energy efficiency of a heat pump continually decreases as outdoor temperatures drop. In a cold climate, a heat pump can still use more energy overall despite being more efficient since it will always run much more than a gas furnace.
Another important thing to note is that you always need an auxiliary or supplementary heat source when using a heat pump in a colder climate. That’s partly because a heat pump frequently needs to run its defrost cycle and stops heating when defrosting. A heat pump defrosts itself by temporarily running in cooling mode, which means it removes heat from the building to pump hot refrigerant through the outdoor part of the system to thaw everything out. That means the indoor temperature would quickly drop if you didn’t have an auxiliary heat source that ran throughout this time.
Most heat pump systems designed for use in cold climates have electric heat strips installed inside that serve as the auxiliary heat source. They switch to auxiliary heat mode when defrosting or when the outdoor temperature is too cold for them to produce sufficient heat. While these strips don’t use as much energy as an electric furnace, they still use far more than a gas furnace. That means the only time it would really be cheaper to have a heat pump than a gas furnace is if the heat strips never had to be on, which is simply never going to be possible in Montana. When considering the various factors, you can be confident that a gas furnace will keep your heating costs lower than any other option.
Advantages of Choosing a High-Efficiency Condensing Furnace
When deciding which gas furnace model you want to install, it may be worth spending a bit more on a high-efficiency condensing furnace than purchasing a conventional one. All conventional furnaces are required to be at least 80% efficient, but even the best models are typically no more than 85-86% efficient. Any condensing furnace you choose will be at least 90% efficient. Choosing a conventional furnace will save you at least $100 yearly on heating costs, if not much more.
Condensing furnaces are more efficient because they have two heat exchangers, whereas conventional furnaces have only one. The secondary heat exchanger allows the unit to capture and effectively use the heat in exhaust gases that would otherwise vent outside. That means the furnace heats more quickly and wastes less energy.
Another issue with conventional furnaces is that they typically cause cold, dry air to get pulled into the building from outside. That’s because they draw the air they need to feed the burner flames from the surrounding area. This process creates negative air pressure in the building that causes cold air to get sucked in through any gaps in the building’s exterior. Condensing furnaces don’t have this issue since they draw air into the combustion chamber through a pipe that sticks through an exterior wall or the roof. That means you never have a pressure imbalance that pulls cold inside. It also helps to keep your home from feeling dry since you don’t have dry outdoor air coming in and lowering the indoor humidity level.
Since 1945, Central Air Services has been helping residents in Billings and the surrounding areas with all of their home comfort needs. We carry a wide selection of quality gas furnaces from Lennox, one of the most trusted brands in the HVAC industry. You can also turn to us for all of your maintenance and repair needs to ensure your heating and air conditioning always works as it should. Contact us today to schedule an appointment with one of the talented team members.
