This article will explain Are Concord Furnaces Any Good? Your central heating system’s outdated furnace can be replaced with a new, more efficient unit to help you balance fluctuating energy costs. (As of now, gasoline prices are anticipated to increase this winter.)
Aside from the cost, modern furnaces provide comfort by consistently producing more heat than traditional furnaces while emitting less pollution. The most popular heating fuel is gas, and gas furnaces are the subject of this guide.
As a reminder, a boiler heats water, whereas a furnace heats air. Both furnaces and boilers generate heat for your home, but understanding the terminology is important since it may indicate that you should read our guide to boilers rather than furnaces.
Are Concord Furnaces Any Good?
Concord Heating and Air Conditioning, a division of Allied Air Enterprises, is the manufacturer of Concord furnaces. While I can give you a few basics about Concord Furnaces, it’s important to remember that product quality and customer satisfaction can change over time. For the most recent information, speaking with qualified HVAC experts and investigating individual models is always a good idea.
Concord provides a selection of gas furnaces for heating solutions for residential applications. They are renowned for their dependability, quiet operation, and energy efficiency.
Modern technologies, including two-stage or variable-speed blowers, modulating burners, and electronic ignition systems, are frequently found in concord furnaces. These characteristics can help with increased comfort, energy efficiency, and noise reduction.
Factors For Furnace’s Performance And Quality
A furnace’s performance and quality should be evaluated in light of the following factors:
Size
The furnace should be designed to meet your needs. A too-tiny furnace won’t keep your home cozy in cold weather.
Most homes’ furnaces are oversized to prevent such a situation. One disadvantage of that approach is its initial expense. A large furnace will turn on and off more frequently.
This increases the wear and tear on its parts, consumes energy, and could result in uncomfortable temperature fluctuations. A bigger replacement furnace can also need bigger ducting. Airflow can be noisy if the ducts are the wrong size.
Choose a trustworthy contractor who will take the time to calculate your heating needs by an industry standard, such as the Manual J HVAC residential load calculation provided by the Air Conditioning Contractors of America, to ensure proper sizing and installation.
These calculations take into account your home’s size, design, and structure, as well as the climate. After installation, do routine maintenance on the furnace by the manufacturer’s instructions. Our survey supported this recommendation.
Contractors cited human error, insufficient maintenance, or faulty installation twice as frequently as damaged equipment when we inquired about the most frequent causes of service calls for furnaces. See our complete analysis of the best and worst gas furnace brand names.
Efficiency
Most new central heating systems use gas, the most popular heating fuel. The annual fuel-utilization-efficiency (AFUE) rating of a furnace, expressed as a percentage, reveals how effectively it transforms the gas into heating energy.
The furnace can produce more heat from each therm of gas when the number is higher. Environmental factors may also affect your decision because efficient furnaces produce fewer emissions.
Over time, furnaces have improved in energy efficiency. An early 1970s gas furnace typically has an AFUE rating of around 65%. The minimum legal efficiency for brand-new gas furnaces is 78 percent, although some recent models reach 97 percent efficiency, which is almost the total.
A furnace’s cost often increases along with its fuel efficiency. A furnace with a 91% AFUE rating could cost $1,000 more than a furnace of comparable size with an 80% rating.
However, especially in areas like the Northeast and Midwest, where winters can be harsh, you can frequently recoup that additional expense through lower fuel bills throughout the furnace. AFUE is only one factor that influences how quickly you recoup your investment.
The electricity needed to run furnaces with various AFUE ratings might fluctuate greatly. Your local climate also influences payback timeframes, how well-insulated your house is, and the cost of gas and electricity in your area.
As you make your choice, demand the contractor choose models with various efficiencies. Then, using one of the numerous applications that make estimates easy, enter each unit’s AFUE rating, electrical consumption, local utility rates, and home characteristics to calculate each model’s annual operating cost. Verify that the prices also cover the cost of any venting modifications that your home’s appliances may require.
Other queries to put to the contractor include: Is the model you’re thinking of somewhat new—say, just two years old—and hence less thoroughly tried? Has the contractor observed any dependability issues with it if it’s an older model?
There are various strategies to increase the energy efficiency of your home. Reduce the temperature in the winter by just 2 degrees Fahrenheit to save money and cut emissions by around 6%.
A programmable or smart thermostat can support this, and you should read our guides on using smart devices and smart thermostats so that you are spending money on something other than heating the whole house when some rooms are empty.
However, you might not even notice the difference, especially at night or when you’re away from home. To avoid the nighttime chill from a frigid window, draw the curtains.
More dated counsel: To take advantage of free solar heating, keep the windows covered on sunny days in the summer and open on sunny days in the winter by plugging leaks and, where practical, insulating ducts, you can lessen heat loss from ducts.
Repair Or Replace?
If your gas furnace malfunctions or breaks down, following a few easy steps could save you the money and hassle of hiring a professional.
- If your furnace’s air filter is clogged, airflow may be reduced to a trickle and cause poor airflow.
- Check to see if the thermostat is malfunctioning or if any connections are loose. Change the batteries in an electronic thermostat if necessary.
- Are circuit breakers tripped, or are fuses burned out? If so, the fan or circuit board may not have had electricity.
Call a heating contractor if those measures don’t work. Even though most new furnaces are more efficient, repairing a furnace is usually less expensive than replacing it. However, you’re usually better off replacing the furnace if a crucial component, such as the exchanger of heat or control module, malfunctions, especially if the appliance is older than around 15 years. The typical lifespan of a furnace is 16-20 years.
Most And Least Trustworthy
You’ll be glad that modern gas furnaces are more fuel-efficient, resulting in significant fuel savings if you need to replace your furnace. By the conclusion of the tenth year of ownership, almost a quarter of gas furnaces are likely to encounter a break.
However, this varies greatly between brands. That is what we discovered using data from our members. In our most recent polls, they discussed their experiences with 36,348 newly installed gas furnaces between 2005 and 2021.
Trane and Payne stood out as the most dependable of the 20 gas furnace brands we evaluated, receiving Excellent ratings for expected reliability. Very Good reliability ratings were given to six other brands.
Features Of Gas Furnaces
Depending on the price, every furnace model offers a comparable range of essential functions. Although some manufacturers also provide them with premium versions of low-efficiency furnaces, the furnace features that are most frequently highlighted in sales pitches and product literature are typically those available on higher-efficiency models.
Blowers With Variable Speeds
When less heat is required, these can transport air more slowly while frequently producing less noise. As a result, there are fewer drafts and unsettling temperature changes.
Different Heat Output
This feature, which is available on some furnaces with a variable-speed blower, improves efficiency and comfort by automatically adjusting the heat output of the furnace, often between two settings. Thus, compared to a furnace with a set heat output, the furnace may continually produce heat.
Air Filtering
An electrostatic or HEPA filter on a furnace helps reduce dust blown through the heating system. If this concerns you, read about indoor air quality and air purifier testing. This might benefit persons with allergies, asthma, or other chronic lung diseases.
Heat Exchangers
The elements that extract heat from the burnt gas are called heat exchangers. Energy-efficient furnaces add a second exchanger to the primary exchanger to extract more heat from the air they burn. The second exchanger is built of stainless steel, lined with plastic, or otherwise shielded because the exhaust gases in that unit could produce a corrosive acidic condensate.
Ignition Mechanism
A pilot light, which is a fire spot that constantly burns while waiting for the burners to ignite, is becoming less and less common in furnaces. Different methods are used by furnaces with intermittent, direct spark, or hot-surface ignition to do away with the steady pilot light. Because of the increased efficiency, furnaces typically have better AFUE ratings.
Heating In Zones
This function distributes various degrees of heating or cooling to various areas of the house using a variety of thermostats, an advanced central controller, and several dampers that control airflow. Zoning is typically more useful for larger homes.
This is especially true if different parts of the housing demand varying levels of heating or cooling, for instance, due to vastly different window types or numbers. However, the contractors we spoke with claimed that zonal ductwork-connected furnaces typically need more maintenance.
Warranty
Furnaces with a lower efficiency level and a shorter guarantee are frequently available.
Other Sources Of Energy
You have a variety of energy sources to select from for heating your house and water. However, the majority of new central heating systems use gas, which is currently the most popular heating fuel.
Warmth Pumps
As an affordable replacement for air conditioners that provide cooling, heat pumps extract heat from outdoor air (and reverse the process in the summer to function as an air conditioner). They are hence the favored heating method in areas with short and moderate winters. (You can get a decent summary from our guide to heat pumps).
Other low-cost choices for electric heating include baseboard units that are permanently fixed in each room and strip heaters that are inserted in the air conditioning system’s ductwork.
However, remember that electricity costs are far higher than those for natural gas and are predicted to stay that way for the foreseeable future before considering any electric central heating in colder regions. Rate information for different fuels is available from suppliers and utilities in your area.
Burning Oil
These venerable models continue to find a market in older homes, mainly in the Northeast.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Are Concord Furnaces Any Good? It is crucial to consider both Concord furnaces’ positive and bad features when assessing their overall quality. The good news is that Concord provides a selection of furnaces with various efficiency ratings, enabling homeowners to select a type that meets their unique requirements.
Concord furnaces are also renowned for their robustness and dependability, with numerous customers attesting to their long-lasting performance. There are a few points that might affect your choice.
If you experience any troubles with your furnace, you should know that some consumers have complained about poor customer support and trouble finding new components. Concord furnaces normally supply enough heating but might not be as energy-efficient as other brands.
Ultimately, your individual needs, financial situation, and top objectives will determine whether Concord Furnaces fits your home well. To make an advised choice that suits your heating needs and tastes, it is advised to carefully investigate and compare several furnace models, read customer reviews, and speak with HVAC experts.
