Furnace Installation in Springfield, OH
A new furnace here will run from October through May every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Clark County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Eight months of heat, and winters that hit the grid hard
Your furnace has to work from October through May here. That's eight months of the year carrying the load, on nights that average 23°F. A new furnace going in Clark County needs to be sized and installed for that stretch of cold, not just the worst week of it.
Most homes here heat with gas, and any non-weatherized gas furnace built since November 2015 has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE by federal rule. That's the floor, not a recommendation. The last ten years have brought 7 winter storms and 88 damaging wind events to the area, and across Ohio last year 18% of households lost power for 24 hours or more. A furnace installed here should be one that starts back up on its own when the power does.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 23°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 71%
- 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 $140 a year to run in Clark County compared with a gas furnace.
Estimates for a typical Clark 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.
Clark County sets its own rule for who can do this job, since Ohio leaves HVAC licensing to the counties instead of testing and recording contractors at the state level. Ohio does define a home contractor as someone carrying at least $250,000 in liability insurance, but that is a definition written into state law, not a license anyone has to earn.
For a furnace install, the protection here comes from the local building office rather than a state license. In most cities and counties, replacing a furnace needs a permit, and the finished work gets an inspection before it is signed off. That inspection is what catches a bad gas connection, which is the part of this job that can hurt someone if it is done wrong. About seven in ten homes in Clark County heat with gas, so that inspection is doing real work here.
Source: Ohio Legislative Service Commission
- What size furnace does my house need?
- It depends on a load calculation, not the square footage alone. A contractor figures this by looking at how much heat your house loses, which comes from the insulation, the windows, the ceiling height, and how the place is laid out. Two homes the same size can need different sized furnaces. With winter lows here averaging 23°F, getting this number right matters more than in a milder climate. A furnace that's too big will short cycle and wear out faster. One that's too small will run constantly and still fall behind on the coldest nights.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- Watch how the furnace is behaving, not just how old it is. Uneven heat between rooms, a furnace cycling on and off more than it used to, or a gas bill climbing without a reason are all signs it's struggling. A cracked heat exchanger is a safety issue, not a repair to put off, and the furnace needs to come out. Homes here need heat from October through May, so a furnace that's failing will get tested hard for most of the year, not just a few cold weeks. A contractor can tell you whether what you're seeing is worth repairing or a sign the furnace is done.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- Every non-weatherized gas furnace made since November 2015 has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE, so the real question is whether it's worth going higher than that. A high-efficiency furnace burns less gas to put out the same heat. With 71.4 percent of homes here heating with gas and 8 months of the year needing that heat, the fuel savings have more months to add up than they would somewhere with a short winter. The tradeoff is a more complex furnace with a secondary heat exchanger and a condensate system, which means more that can need service down the road. A contractor can walk through what fits your house and your gas use.