When shopping for a new furnace, you need to look at both a unit's BTU and efficiency ratings. ®/™ © 2021 Maytag. In American practice, separate ducts collect cool air to be returned to the furnace. This style furnace still used large, masonry or brick chimneys for flues and was eventually designed to accommodate air-conditioning systems. We’ll have to get a company that can help us with some residential gas delivery so we could fuel the furnace. No one likes to be cold in their home and rely SOLELY on space heaters! If you’re wondering how does a furnace work? The third category of furnace is the forced draft, mid-efficiency furnace with a steel heat exchanger and multi-speed blower. CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (, Learn how and when to remove these template messages, Learn how and when to remove this template message, "Handbook on Single, Multi & Variable Speed Furnaces", Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, High efficiency glandless circulating pump, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Furnace&oldid=1009564321, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles needing additional references from July 2007, All articles needing additional references, Articles lacking in-text citations from April 2014, Articles with multiple maintenance issues, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 1 March 2021, at 06:10. The furnace then automatically turns off to prevent the furnace from suffering damage. As this gas lights, it is important that everything is working correctly to prevent an explosion or gas leak. The heated air was moved by blowers which were belt driven and designed for a wide range of speeds. One disadvantage to this type of application is when the boiler breaks down, neither heating nor domestic hot water are available. Thanks for writing a post about furnace and how it works. […] cases it’s due to the air filter in the furnace being dirty, and when that filer is dirty your furnace will have to run longer to keep your home warm until the furnace eventually […]. […] you’ve figured out how a gas furnace works and think it’s right up your alley… But, just how much does it cost to install a […], […] essential parts – a heat pump and a gas furnace (for more information about heat pumps and gas furnaces, visit our previous articles). The fourth category of furnace is the high-efficiency, or condensing furnace. Depending on the demanded heat, they can run at a lower speed most of the time. Furnace gas valves are only seen on gas-fueled forced air … Because the heat exchanger removes most of the heat from the exhaust gas, it actually condenses water vapor and other chemicals (which form a mild acid) as it operates. These furnaces could be made to work with any fuel simply by adapting the burner area. Are you curious about how other heating and cooling systems work? The most common type of furnace is a gas-powered central air system, which heats air in a one area and then distributes it throughout the home via ductwork and vents. The heat is transferred to the air. Pretty cool, right? They provide a steady supply of electricity to the fan motors (used to help the blowers move hot air through your system). Older versions were powered by coal and wood versus today’s modern versions, which burn natural gas, propane and electricity to … The heat exchangers were vented through brick or masonry chimneys. A gas furnace is a heating system that uses a gaseous product as fuel to generate heat. So, did you already know this? Every furnace has a blower motor connected to a large “squirrel cage” fan that performs this job. Otherwise, your furnace won’t be able to heat your home. In order for the furnace to work properly, that condensation needs to be drained out or else it would accumulate inside the heat exchanger, inducer and venting, impeding proper gas/combustion product flow. By comparison, most modern "warm air" furnaces typically use a fan to circulate air to the rooms of house and pull cooler air back to the furnace for reheating; this is called forced-air heat. If you have, schedule an oil delivery ASAP and be sure to inform the oil company that your oil tank is completely depleted. Furnace maintenance is a preventive heating service that involves a thorough inspection and tune-up of your system. Normally the combustion air (fresh air) PVC is routed alongside the exhaust PVC during installation and the pipes exit through a sidewall of the home in the same location. The most important job of a furnace is to move heated air from the furnace out into the home. The BTU refers to the heat output the furnace creates. A two-stage furnace works by using a different set of programming than a normal one-stage furnace. The vent pipes are normally installed with PVC pipe versus metal vent pipe to prevent corrosion. Heating appliances that use steam or hot water as the fluid are normally referred to as a residential steam boiler or residential hot water boiler. Gas -- either natural or propane -- provides the source necessary to warm a home’s cold air during the heating season. Gas and oil-fired systems were usually controlled by a thermostat inside the home, while most wood and coal-fired furnaces had no electrical connection and were controlled by the amount of fuel in the burner and position of the fresh-air damper on the burner access door. It provides quick, powerful heating at a (relatively) low cost per month. A modern compact furnace for a single family home can readily fit into a small closet. Your duties include operating the machine on a daily basis and performing sample tests to verify that the equipment is functional. It is one of the oldest types of heating systems still in use today. You must know how to clean a furnace effectively and do so regularly if you want to extend the life of your current furnace … 180,000 BTU. What Does a Furnace Operator Do? However, care must be exercised to provide adequate ventilation as the exterior of the furnace unit emits a significant amount of heat, and a natural gas or any other fueled furnace will need an adequate amount of combustion air. Of course, this is just one type of system (a single-stage system with a non-programmable thermostat). Another cause of wasted energy is the installation of ductwork in unheated areas, such as attics and crawl spaces; or ductwork of air conditioning systems in attics in warm climates. We’ve put together this list of furnace parts and what they do. Heating appliances that use steam or hot water as the fluid are normally referred to as a residential steam boile… Air is circulated through ductwork, which may be made of sheet metal or plastic "flex" duct, and is insulated or uninsulated. The heat exchanger is a metal box. This method of heating worked because warm air rises. The term furnace also refers to the various types of metallurgical furnaces, used for smelting and other metalworks, as well as industrial furnaces, which are used in various industrial applications such as chemical plants and providing heat to chemical reactions. When it comes to residential heating, it’s best to install a system with the help of a reputable heating contractor. A traditional single-stage furnace runs the burner at full blast and shuts off until heat is called for.