How Is Furnace Efficiency Determined in Lacombe, LA?

When it’s time to purchase a new oil or gas furnace for your Lacombe, LA home, you’ll want something efficient. To do that, you’ll need a decent understanding of furnace efficiency ratings and what they mean. Here’s a guide to furnace efficiency ratings to help you make a smart purchasing decision.

What Is an AFUE Ratio?

When you start evaluating new furnaces, you’ll see that they each come with an ENERGY STAR certification label that displays the unit’s annualized fuel utilization efficiency (AFUE) ratio and estimated annual operational costs. AFUE is the industry’s standard efficiency measure for new oil and gas furnaces.

An AFUE ratio gives you a fairly precise idea of how efficient you can expect a new furnace to be. Older furnaces may not have a rating, but you can reasonably expect that they’re less efficient.

Understanding an AFUE Ratio

Unlike some of the other HVAC efficiency standards you may be familiar with, an AFUE ratio is quite straightforward. It tells you exactly how much of the fuel a furnace burns that will be converted into usable heat for your home. So, a furnace with an AFUE ratio of 80 will convert 80% of the fuel it uses into heat and waste 20%.

AFUE ratios are also used by the Department of Energy (DOE) to set minimum standards for new gas-powered furnaces. The minimum legal AFUE ratio for new indoor (non-weatherized) gas furnaces is 80 and 84 for oil furnaces.

Consult the Furnace Experts

Now when you need to buy a new furnace for your home, you’ll know how to choose an efficient one. All that’s left after that is to choose a trustworthy company to install it for you, and that’s us. So, contact Three Rivers Services, LLC today for your heating installation needs, and we’ll get the job done right!

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