No matter what kind of furnace you have in your home, the time will come when the furnace is no longer working as well as it should be. Maintaining your furnace will help extend the life of it, but if you reach a point that is is no longer cost-effective to fix or maintain, replacing the furnace might just be the most practical option.
Soaring Cost of Repair
A furnace that is shutting down suddenly probably has something wrong with it that may not be difficult to fix; however, if the cost of repair is too high or if the parts are no longer available, you may find you have to replace the furnace with a new one.
Sometimes, the problem involves several parts, and the cost to replace all those parts is higher than buying a new furnace. Throwing more money into the existing unit may not make any sense. Talk to your furnace company about what your best options are for replacement and if it makes sense in your situation.
Age of the Furnace
The furnace in your home may be the original unit, and if it is still working okay, you may not want to change it. However, if the furnace is more than 20 years old, it will be difficult to continue servicing the furnace properly, and some parts will become more difficult to replace.
Changing the fuel nozzle in the burner is something that should be part of your yearly maintenance. Still, if the furnace is so old that you can't get the nozzle anymore, you may run into a situation that does not allow you to continue working on the furnace. Sometimes the furnace company or tech can use newer parts for your old furnace, but in many situations, more modern parts don't fit or work the same as those that came on the original furnace.
Reduction in Efficiency
If you start to notice the performance of your furnace is getting lower over time, you may want to talk to your heating contractor about it. Even though your old furnace is still working, it was designed to run in a time that oil or fuel was cheaper, and as the unit ages, the efficiency may no longer be there.
The cost of running the old furnace can rise to the point that it becomes unmanageable month after month, and the cost of installing a new furnace may outweigh the cost of replacing the unit entirely. To learn more, contact your local furnace installation company.
When you build a home or make a large addition to the home, you will hire a general contractor to oversee the project and do the majority of the work. This individual may subcontract some small tasks to specialists, such as window installers and HVAC techs, but for the most part, it is their responsibility to ensure everything is built according to plan.
As you can imagine, general contractors have very varied jobs. No two days are alike! On this website, you will learn more about what general contractors do, which will come in handy the next time you need to hire one.