7 Signs Your Furnace Needs Replacing

Not all indicators of a major problem with your furnace are obvious. Sometimes, they’re silent problems that can easily go unnoticed until one day when the furnace gives up the ghost.

When it comes to common heating problems, this is one of the more expensive to resolve. This is why, when the time comes, replacing an old furnace with one produced by a high-quality heating brand is well worth it.

Here are seven signs that your furnace needs replacing to give you a clearer idea about what you are looking for.

1. Frequent Breakdowns Due To Age

Furnaces are usually designed to provide good service to homeowners for 10-15 years. After this point, they’ll begin to exhibit clear indications that they’re too old because of regular breakdowns and poor performance.

If you’re worried that it will stop working in the depth of winter with snow on the ground and when it is tough to get someone to come out, it’s an added stress you don’t need.

If you know that your furnace matches the above description, it’s time to shop around for a replacement. An optimal place to begin is to learn about the best furnace brands first. The brands covered in the linked article are high-quality, reliable ones. The information provided includes how fuel efficient their furnaces are (the critical AFUE rating) and how many furnace models each brand has available. This will set you on the right track.

2. Noisy Furnace

A furnace can develop leaking, cracking, or structural problems. Over time, this results in various sounds emanating from it as it struggles to continue its task.

An old furnace can start producing a cacophony of sounds, including loud humming, metallic rattling, and a buzzing that gets right in your ear.

While it’s possible to arrange a callout, these types of concerns aren’t readily fixable with older furnaces. And if the problem is structural, a complete rebuild will be more trouble than it’s worth.

3. Energy Inefficient

Furnaces are large heating devices that early on were not that energy efficient. However, they’ve come on in leaps and bounds in the last few years to become far better stewards of energy consumption.

The AFUE rating is one way to see how fuel-efficient a furnace is. For instance, for gas furnaces, an 80 rating denotes 80% of the gas fuel supply to heat the home.

Energy Star ratings are also used and indicate energy efficiency by grades. These are applied to many home appliances, not just furnaces. By using Energy Star ratings, you can shop for an energy-efficient furnace that’ll save you money each year on the gas or electricity bill.

4. Starting And Stopping

Some furnaces will begin to cycle by turning the heating on and off. If this happens, it will never finish a heating cycle. This leads to inconsistent heating throughout the home, including some rooms being warmed nicely and others insufficiently so.

When the issue keeps cropping up, it won’t go away by itself. In which case, getting a service engineer to come out to inspect the furnace becomes a regular occurrence. If you are not on a maintenance contract, each of these callouts becomes expensive and inconvenient, requiring you to take time off work, etc.

Sometimes, the cause is a faulty heat sensor or even the fan motor requiring a replacement. But repeated instances of this situation are a sure-fire indication that the furnace will be a pain to maintain from now on.

5. Dirty Particles

When operational, older furnaces can begin to generate rust, dirt, soot, dust, and other assorted debris. These can get ground up and reach the heat that’s being produced and spread around the home.

Having the furnace cleaned won’t help much to resolve the issue. Older units will continue to operate inefficiently and lead to ongoing contaminating air particles inside the home. When this happens, it’s time to accept that the furnace needs replacing.

6. Flame Discoloration

The color of the burner flame on a gas furnace may have a yellow tint. The flame can often be observed through a peephole at the front of the burner unit.

When it’s yellow, this suggests that the burner is operating in a dirty fashion where it is not reaching its potential or that the carbon monoxide isn’t escaping properly. It’s essential to check the furnace with a CO detector if that’s the case to see how bad the situation is.

7. Excess Moisture Or Humidity

When there is new window condensation or moist air that wasn’t present before, it could suggest a problem with the furnace.

Improper vents or a poorly functioning furnace can result in heating that doesn’t dry the internal air successfully. Additionally, in environments that occasionally suffer bouts of humidity, should these be worse while the general humidity levels are unchanged, this indicates furnace problems that might not be fixable.

While we never want to accept that our furnace has gotten too old to continue using it, many of the above signs should be tacitly acknowledged as clarification. At that point, look for a strong heating brand offering a furnace that’ll provide reliable heating for another 15 years post-purchase. This effectively spreads the cost of the new system over its lifetime.