Lone Star Cooling and Heating
Get help with Heating Installation & Replacement
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Call (325) 219-0005Replacing a furnace or other heating system, with the fuel, size and venting chosen for the building and the new equipment fitted to the cooling coil, ducts and controls it has to work with.
01Heating replacement
Some replacements are forced by a safety finding. Most are planned around worn equipment or a wider change.
A crack in the heat exchanger can let combustion gases, including carbon monoxide, mix with the air sent through the house. The furnace is normally shut down and left off, and on most furnaces replacement is the practical answer.
Ignition parts, motors and control boards failing one after another point to equipment near the end of its useful life. Planning a replacement in a mild month avoids choosing under pressure on the coldest night of the year.
A furnace that cycles on and off constantly, leaves cold rooms or costs more to run each year may be worn, oversized or both. A new one is sized from the building, not copied from the old nameplate.
In most split systems the cooling coil sits on the furnace and shares its blower. When both are due, replacing them together lets the coil, cabinet and blower be matched from the start.
Moving from oil or propane to natural gas, or from gas to electric heat, changes more than the equipment. Gas supply, electrical capacity, venting and the running cost all shift, and each needs checking before the choice is made.
02Safety first
A furnace shut down for safety is not a furnace waiting to be restarted.
If a technician has shut the furnace down because of a cracked heat exchanger or a venting fault, leave it off until it has been replaced or repaired, even in cold weather. If the building gets dangerously cold, move older people, infants and anyone unwell somewhere warm.
If a carbon monoxide alarm sounds, get everyone out into fresh air and call 911. Stay out until the responders say the building is safe.
Leave the building without switching anything on or off or using a flame, and call the gas utility or 911 from outside.
Heating Installation & Replacement
Serving Abilene, TX.
03Fuel choice
The best fuel depends on what reaches the property, the climate and local energy prices, not on a general rule.
Strong, fast heat that holds up in the coldest weather, and the usual choice where natural gas is already piped to the building. It needs a safe vent for its exhaust, a gas supply sized for it, and a carbon monoxide alarm nearby.
Simple to install, with no combustion and no flue, but electric resistance heat usually costs more to run than a heat pump and often more than gas. It fits best where winters are short or no gas supply exists, and it needs substantial electrical capacity.
Moves heat rather than making it, so it heats with less electricity than resistance heat and also provides cooling. How well it suits depends on the climate and the backup heat chosen for the coldest days, and it takes the place of both the furnace and the outdoor cooling unit.
04Sizing and efficiency
Many furnaces in service are larger than their buildings need. Replacement is the moment to put that right.
A heat loss calculation works out how fast the building sheds heat on a cold day for its area, through walls, windows, ceilings and air leaks. Insulation, new windows or an addition since the last furnace went in can all change that figure. A furnace matched to it runs longer, steadier cycles, with more even rooms and less wear than one that blasts heat and shuts off.
Furnace efficiency is rated as AFUE, the share of the fuel that becomes heat inside the building over a season. Higher-rated condensing furnaces capture extra heat by cooling their exhaust until water forms in it. How much that saves depends on the length of the heating season and the price of fuel locally.
05Venting
The efficiency level chosen decides how the exhaust leaves the building, and that can reach beyond the furnace.
Hot exhaust rises through a metal flue or lined chimney, often the same one a gas water heater uses. The existing vent is checked for size, condition and a clear path, because a vent that suited the old furnace may not suit the new one.
The cooler exhaust runs through plastic pipe out a wall or the roof, and a drain carries away the water the furnace makes. If the old furnace shared a chimney with a water heater, the water heater may be left alone in a flue now too large for it, and its venting has to be corrected.
06Fitting it in
A furnace connects to more of the house than any other piece of heating equipment.
The coil usually sits on top of the furnace, so the new cabinet has to line up with it or be joined with a fitted transition. A coil that no longer matches the new furnace in width or airflow is a reason to replace both.
The furnace blower moves the air for heating and for cooling. It has to deliver the airflow the cooling equipment needs through the existing ducts, which can set the furnace model as much as the heating load does.
A furnace with a different input, a change of fuel or a move to electric heat can need a larger gas line or new electrical circuits. Both are checked before the equipment is ordered.
Two-stage and variable-speed furnaces only reach their full benefit when the thermostat can signal more than one stage. The present thermostat and its wiring are checked so the new furnace is not stuck at a single setting.
07Questions
It often makes sense when both are older, because the cooling coil sits on the furnace and relies on its blower, and one project disturbs the house once. If the cooling equipment is fairly new and uses a current refrigerant, a furnace can be replaced on its own and fitted to the existing coil.
Rarely. An oversized furnace heats in short bursts, which leaves some rooms cold, wears parts faster and wastes fuel. Cold rooms usually trace to ducts, air leaks or insulation, and a heat loss calculation shows whether the furnace size is really the problem.
It pulls so much heat from its exhaust that the gases leave cool and wet, and the water in them is mildly acidic. Plastic pipe handles that, where a metal flue or masonry chimney would corrode. The same furnace needs a drain for the water it produces.
What the system is doing, when it started, what the thermostat is set to and what it reads, and whether the outdoor unit is running. The age of the equipment and a photo of its label help a technician arrive prepared.
Lone Star Cooling and Heating
Call Lone Star Cooling and Heating, have us call you, or describe the issue.
Prefer to talk?
Call (325) 219-0005