If you own a home in Littleton, CO, you already know how much you depend on its heating system. With low temperatures often dipping into the teens in winter, your home would be uninhabitable without it. So, when the time comes for a new heating system, it isn’t a decision to take lightly. These days, most homeowners choose between a furnace or a heat pump. Here are the differences between the two so that you can make an informed decision.
What Is a Furnace?
A furnace is an appliance that uses either electrical resistance or combustion to generate heat. In the Denver metropolitan area, natural gas furnaces are the most common option. Furnaces are also a central heating option. That means they feature a single indoor unit that distributes hot air around a house via ductwork. As many as 75% of Colorado homes depend on gas furnaces for heat.
How Do Furnaces Work?
Although some aspects of a furnace may vary by manufacturer, most work similarly. The furnace heating process begins when your home’s thermostat signals a need for heat. That triggers a few processes within the furnace. One is the activation of the furnace’s blower fan. It pulls in cold air through your home’s return air vents and returns heated air via the supply vents. Simultaneously, the furnace turns on its natural gas supply and ignites the gas exiting its burners.
The combustion process results in hot exhaust gases, which the furnace routes through a heat exchanger. The cold air from the return ducts passes over the heat exchanger, warming up and reducing the exhaust gas temperature. After sufficiently warming, the air returns to your home and exits its vents. The remaining exhaust gases exit your home through your furnace’s flue.
If yours is a high-efficiency or condensing furnace, it will feature a secondary heat exchanger. That helps extract more heat from the exhaust gases before they leave your home. Otherwise, the excess heat goes to waste when the gases leave via your flue.
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Furnaces
Modern gas furnaces come with notable advantages and disadvantages. One of their most significant advantages is that they’re relatively inexpensive to operate. They owe that trait to two factors. One is that natural gas is plentiful and is the cheapest heating fuel currently available. The second is that gas furnaces are very efficient. A minimally efficient gas furnace converts approximately 81% of its fuel to usable heat. High-efficiency models can convert up to 98.7% of their fuel to heat.
Gas furnaces also boast low up-front costs and excellent longevity. Depending on the size of your home, a new furnace might cost only a few thousand dollars. For that price, you can expect the appliance to give you between 15 and 20 years of reliable service. All told, that adds up to a low overall cost of ownership.
It’s also advantageous that gas furnaces have such a long history. As a residential heating option for over a century, gas furnaces rely on mature technology that’s well understood. That means you’ll never struggle to find a qualified technician to install your furnace and to maintain and repair it as well.
For all their advantages, furnaces aren’t perfect, however. For one thing, they present some safety hazards. The combustion process carries a risk of fire escaping your furnace. In addition, a furnace’s exhaust gases are toxic to humans. One of them, carbon monoxide, is lethal in sufficient quantities. So, if your furnace malfunctions, it may have dangerous results. Also, burning natural gas contributes significantly to climate change. That said, there are electric furnaces as well, but they aren’t nearly as efficient as gas furnaces are.
What Is a Heat Pump?
A heat pump is an HVAC system that can both heat and cool your home. Heat pumps run solely on electricity. However, they don’t generate heat in the same way that a furnace does. Instead, they collect already-existing heat from the outdoor air and carry it indoors. Air-source heat pumps come in two main forms. One is a conventional ducted system, similar to a central air conditioner. The other is a ductless mini-split, which combines a single outdoor unit with one to eight indoor air handlers.
How Do Heat Pumps Work?
If you’re unfamiliar with heat pump technology, their mode of operation may seem confusing. Most people struggle to grasp how a heat pump can gather heat from the outdoors when it’s frigid outside. The answer lies in the fact that air always contains some heat energy until the temperature reaches absolute zero. That’s -459.67 degrees Fahrenheit, so it’s highly unlikely to happen.
Heat pumps collect heat by manipulating the temperature of a refrigerant with a compressor and an expansion valve. When you reduce the pressure of a refrigerant, it grows cold. As long as it reaches a temperature lower than that of the outdoor air, it will readily absorb heat. Then, increasing the pressure with the compressor amplifies that heat to warm your home. Cold-weather heat pumps can efficiently heat homes when temperatures are as low as -15 degrees Fahrenheit.
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Heat Pumps
Heat pumps will likely displace gas furnaces as our area’s most popular heating system very soon. They have multiple advantages that explain why. Plus, their disadvantages aren’t deal-breakers.
The greatest advantage of installing a heat pump is its impressive energy efficiency. They can provide up to four units of heat for every unit of electricity consumed. That’s over four times as efficient as the best furnace you can find. And heat pumps don’t emit noxious gases as they operate. As an all-electric heating solution, heat pumps are safe and pose almost no fire risk.
Another advantage is that heat pumps also function as cooling systems. Installing one can take the place of your existing AC, reducing your overall maintenance needs. New heat pumps also qualify for generous tax credits and income-based, up-front rebates. These incentives may help to eliminate heat pumps’ Achilles’ heel for some homeowners: high up-front costs.
Installing a heat pump can cost many times as much as what a new furnace would. Also, relying on a heat pump means depending on a single system for year-round comfort. If anything malfunctioned, waiting a long time for repairs wouldn’t be feasible. You also might want a backup electrical source to provide you with heat if grid power were to fail during a storm. The problem is that running a heat pump would require a large generator. By contrast, you can keep many gas furnaces running with a small generator.
Your Local Heating System Specialists
Whether you decide on a furnace or a heat pump for your Littleton home, the heating service pros at Summit Heating, A/C, Plumbing & Electrical can provide it. We offer complete HVAC installation, repair, and maintenance services. Our NATE-certified technicians have industry-leading training and skills. We can also handle your electrical, plumbing, and ductwork needs. As a Lennox Premier Dealer and a Mitsubishi Electric Diamond Contractor, we sell the finest furnaces and heat pumps. We’re also Better Business Bureau accredited with an A+ rating, so you can trust our work.
If your Littleton home needs a new heating system, call our experts at Summit Heating, A/C, Plumbing & Electrical today!
