According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, one of the best ways to enjoy cleaner, healthier indoor air this year is to remove indoor air pollutants right at their source.
In many cases, this can be accomplished with third-party appliances that can be retrofitted to work with your existing HVAC (air conditioning and heating) system.
But if you have an older air conditioner or furnace that is nearing or at the end of its useful life, this type of retrofitting may not be enough. It also may not make good cost sense in terms of wear and tear on your entire HVAC system.
The Energy Star program suggests it is time to begin thinking about replacement when your furnace or heating boiler has passed its 15th birthday. If you use a heat pump, the 10th birthday is the milestone to watch for.
Learn about how to know it is time to upgrade your furnace and how making this change can improve your indoor air quality for years to come!
Do Any of These Furnace Warning Signs Sound Familiar?
When a furnace is starting to dream of retirement, it often has a way of letting you know. However, unless you understand how your furnace communicates, you may not decode the message until one day it just stops working!
These are just a few of the many communication tools your furnace may use to try to get your attention.
Mysterious noises
Knocking. Banging. Scraping. Rattling. Clicking. Squealing. These are just a few of the many mysterious sounds a furnace can make.
Ideally, you want your furnace to be whisper quiet. Not all furnaces (especially older models) can pull this off. But at the very least, you don’t want the sound to be sufficiently loud and frequent that it becomes hard to ignore!
From expanding and contracting air ducts to broken parts to frayed belts, all parts are potential culprits when your furnace becomes more vocal.
Dust keeps piling up
Leaking ductwork, poorly sealed windows and doors, dirty filters and similar causes can create a continual influx of dust with each furnace cycle.
Too-warm and too-cold rooms—all in the same house
A furnace that is not heating evenly may or may not be your furnace’s fault. Poorly routed ductwork or degrading insulation are also possible suspects.
Your home is too humid
This can be especially notable in winter, when outdoor weather is typically dry. A poorly maintained or underpowered furnace combined with leaky ducts is often the root cause here.
Your energy bill keeps going up
If you can’t pin rising energy costs on local power costs or increased usage, it may be time to look at whether your furnace is pulling in more energy to do the same job. If your repair bills are also increasing, this is likely the case.
Benefits to Upgrading Your Furnace Now
It is true that upgrading your furnace is an investment. It is also true that most people don’t get wildly excited about purchasing a new furnace (in contrast with, say, purchasing a vacation to Tahiti).
But once your new furnace starts paying for itself with lower energy bills, better heating efficiency and healthier family members, this can generate its own excitement—plus help you save towards that dream vacation getaway!
A new Energy Star certified furnace can achieve a 15 percent improvement in energy efficiency right out of the starting gate.
The average homeowner in Toronto area spends $201.23 per month on hydro alone. A 15 percent savings trims $30 off that cost monthly or $362 annually.
If your new furnace costs $1,500, your annual energy savings will pay for it within five years. Plus, you get the benefits of cleaner indoor air, more balanced heating from room to room, better control over humidity seasonally, quieter operation and the chance to conserve natural resources.
And it is impossible to put a price tag to the peace of mind you get from knowing you have a brand-new furnace that won’t just conk out on you mid-winter!
How Your New Furnace Can Help Purify Your Indoor Air
Choosing to do a furnace upgrade with professional installation gives you the opportunity to thoroughly evaluate your central ductwork and your entire HVAC system.
This is not nearly as overwhelming as it may sound, however!
What we recommend is to schedule a professional indoor air duct cleaning service at the same time as you do your furnace upgrade. This ensures you bring in a squeaky clean, energy-efficient new furnace to operate in concert with squeaky clean, like-new air ducts.
We also recommend adding two additional elements to your HVAC system to provide cleaner, purified and humidity-balanced indoor air for the foreseeable future.
With a heat recovery ventilator, an appliance that is now required for all new residential construction in Ontario, you recapture otherwise wasted heat to further improve the energy efficiency of your furnace operation. A heat recovery ventilator also helps to remove toxins, balance the humidity in your home and ensure continuous ventilation.
For the finishing touch, we recommend adding either a HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) filtration system or an ultraviolet air purification system to work with your new furnace, duct system and heat recovery ventilator to ensure even micro-particulate toxins never infiltrate your indoor air in the future.
Get in Touch
If you suspect this may be the year your furnace needs an upgrade, the first step is to give us a call to talk through options.
Right now, if you purchase a new furnace and A/C combo through our sister company, Shipton’s Heating & Cooling, you can save up to $1,850!
Plus, save 10 percent on any of our popular air duct cleaning packages!
Contact us online or give us a call at 905-544-2470 to talk about options for improving indoor air quality this winter!
