Having a functional and efficient furnace isn’t just about comfort. When the weather is at its coldest, a furnace can be essential for your family from hypothermia, colds, and other cold weather-related illnesses.
Although your current furnace might still function, if it’s old, outdated, or unable to heat your home evenly, it might fail right when you need it most.
Rather than waiting until the first serious cold snap to learn that your furnace has reached the end of its lifespan, you can keep an eye on these five signs that it’s time for a furnace replacement.
1. Your Furnace Is Old
With proper installation and diligent maintenance over time, the average furnace should last between 15 and 20 years.
If your furnace is over a decade old, you want to pay careful attention to how well it functions, how frequent repairs are, and how much you’re spending on energy throughout the cold season.
A furnace that’s over ten years old won’t include the latest energy efficiency or air purification features. Moreover, with each passing year after the 10-year mark, an old unit will gradually decrease in heat efficiency and raise both your heating costs and carbon footprint.
As your furnace ages, it will invariably become one of the least appealing features in your home. This is vital to keep in mind if you want to place your property on the real estate market within the next few years. A new furnace can greatly increase the likelihood of attracting qualified, interested buyers should you ever choose to sell the property.
2. Your Energy Bill Is Rising
If your furnace’s efficiency remains the same, then your energy spending from winter to winter should remain the same as well.
Noticing dramatic increases in your home heating bills despite the fact that your heating habits are unchanged likely means that your furnace is old, outdated, and ready for replacement.
Home heating bills should only rise significantly when new household members are added, new home additions are built, or the property has been altered in other significant ways.
3. Furnace Is Making Strange Sounds
Furnaces that make loud snapping, cracking, banging, or clanging noises are often written off as being inherently noisy.
In fact, so many homeowners live with outdated heating equipment’s that many of those sounds are considered a natural part of furnace functioning.
In reality, however, noisy heating equipment often has structural issues like interior cracks and leaks that may indicate venting problems.
In many cases, these are problems that can eventually lead to the release of poisonous gases.
4. Heat Is Not Evenly Distributed
Uneven heat distribution often occurs as furnaces start nearing the end of their lifespans. Older, forced air heating systems have a much harder time pushing air throughout the air ducts, leaving some rooms hot and stuffy and others noticeably cold.
However, before contacting a provider of furnace installation services, you might want to consider having your air registers and air ducts professionally cleaned.
If those features have accumulated plenty of dirt, dust, and lint, your furnace may simply be overworking to compensate.
5. Constantly Having To Pay for Repairs
One of the best ways to ensure that your furnace functions throughout the entirety of its expected lifespan is scheduling annual maintenance inspections.
Yearly inspections can keep this type of equipment from overworking and allow HVAC professionals to catch and correct minor issues before they spiral out of control.
However, if you have to schedule multiple repair visits throughout the winter, it is a sure sign that it is time to replace your heater. The costs of never-ending furnace repairs can quickly add up to the price of a new unit.
Moreover, paying a bit more to upgrade outdated heating equipment eventually pays for itself by:
- Lowering your energy bills.
- Limiting the need for secondary heating sources.
- Allowing you to sidestep the costs of repair services and replacement parts.
Conclusion
Having a new furnace installed can significantly increase your home’s comfort. If you’ve noticed any of the five problems mentioned above, it is a clear sign that the old furnace needs to go.
An upgrade will lower your carbon footprint, prevent total heating system failure, and usually run more silently. With a new furnace, your home will be both more enjoyable to live in and infinitely more marketable if you ever decide to sell it.