Furnace Installation in Cincinnati, OH
A new furnace here will run from October through April every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Hamilton County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Seven months of heat in Hamilton County
Furnaces here run October through April, seven months of the year. Winter nights average 25°F, so the new unit has to carry the house through real cold, not just take the edge off. Any furnace installed now has to meet the federal minimum of 80 percent AFUE.
Most homes in the county heat with gas. Winter storms and wind events are common here, and power outages come with them. A gas furnace with a standing pilot lights without power. One that uses electronic ignition needs power to start, but it will come back on by itself once the power is restored.
- 7 months
- October through April, your furnace is on duty
- 25°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 60%
- of homes here heat with gas, so most furnaces here burn gas
- 80% AFUE
- the federal minimum any new unit must meet
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A high-efficiency gas furnace would save about $120 a year to run in Hamilton County compared with a gas furnace.
Estimates for a typical Hamilton County home, from EIA household energy data, Ohio fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
In Ohio, HVAC licensing for homes is left to the counties.
Ohio does not license HVAC contractors at the state level. That is left to the counties, which means whether a contractor needs a license to install a furnace here depends on what Hamilton County requires, not on any statewide rule. Ohio does define what counts as a home contractor, and that definition calls for at least $250,000 in liability insurance. That is a definition written into state law, not a license or a credential.
For a furnace install, the county is the source of whatever licensing protection applies here, not the state. In most cities and counties, a furnace replacement also needs a permit from the local building office and an inspection once the work is done. That inspection is what checks the gas connection, which is the part of the job that can hurt someone if it is done wrong. In Hamilton County, 60 percent of homes heat with gas, so that connection is part of most furnace jobs here.
Source: Ohio Legislative Service Commission
- What size furnace does my house need?
- It depends on your home's square footage, insulation, windows, and layout, so there's no chart that gets it right on its own. A contractor works this out with a load calculation done for your house. Too big, and the furnace cycles on and off more than it should, wasting fuel. Too small, and it runs constantly on the coldest nights and still falls behind. Winter lows here average 25°F, so the calculation has real work to do.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- Watch how the furnace behaves, not just how old it is. Uneven heat between rooms, longer run times than before, or gas bills climbing without a clear reason all point to a furnace losing ground. If a technician finds a cracked heat exchanger, that's a safety problem and the furnace gets replaced, not repaired. Homes here need heat from October through April, so a furnace that's struggling tends to show it fast once the cold sets in.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- It depends on how long you plan to stay in the house and what you're paying now to heat it. Every non-weatherized gas furnace built since November 2015 has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE, so even a standard model today wastes less gas than older units. A high-efficiency furnace pushes that number higher, so less of what you burn goes out the vent instead of into the house. With 7 months of heating a year here and 60 percent of homes running on gas, that difference shows up on more bills than it would somewhere with a shorter winter. A contractor can look at your current furnace and your home's heating needs and tell you whether the higher efficiency model makes sense for your situation.