Heating Systems
Heating and cooling systems usually account for the majority of your utility expenses. In our area we primarily see heat pumps with heat strips for backup or gas furnaces.
Surprising to many we actually have more need for heating than cooling in North Georgia. The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) created the measurement of heating and cooling degree days to reflect the demand for heating and cooling. It uses the temperature difference from the thermostat setting to the outside temperature for each hour of each day and converts it to degrees per day. We have about 1,800 Cooling Degree Days and 2,800 Heating Degree Days in North Georgia. This is because the temperature difference in the winter is typically 25 degrees difference to only 15 degrees in the summer. Those colds nights in the teens really add up.
Maintenance consists of changing your filters regularly and having a qualified technician clean and inspect the system about every two to three years. Gas furnaces do need to be checked by a qualified technician to make sure that it is operating properly, they should check the fuel pressure, mixture and CO output levels. We will check the CO and for proper ventilation during our audit. If we find a problem we can usually tell you what it is but will often recommend a qualified furnace technician to do the work.
There are several heating alternatives that are quite interesting, corn, pellet and wood stoves, radiant floors with hot water circulating through them, electric and steam baseboard, passive solar collectors. Geothermal and hydronic heat pumps circulate water through the ground to exchange heat.
Newer combustion furnaces and boilers have seen some efficiency improvement by controlling combustion air and elimination of dilution air. Older units were in the 60-70% efficiency range while new gas furnaces will be in the 90% efficiency range.