What Does HVAC Mean?

HVAC is an acronym that stands for Heating, Ventilation and AIr Conditioning. The term refers to all aspects of your home’s furnace, air conditioner, ductwork, air purifier, etc.

What is a Furnace?

A furnace is an enclosed heating unit that heats air by transferring heat in a metal combustion chamber to the air and circulating it throughout heating ducts in the house. Furnaces can run on electricity, natural gas, propane or fuel oil.

What is an Air Conditioner?

What is a Boiler?

A boiler is a heating system that consists of a sealed chamber that converts water to steam or heats water for circulation in a hydronic heating system. If you have radiators distributed throughout your home you have a boiler. (Although some boilers distribute heat through baseboard heaters or even radiant pipes embedded in your floors!).

If you need to replace your boiler, it’s best to replace it with another boiler. Because there are oil-filled boilers and electric boilers, it is vital that you consider the size of your home and your family’s needs.

What is a Heat Pump?

A heat pump is an electric air conditioning and heating system that captures existing outdoor heat and transfers the heat into the home. Like a warm-air furnace a heat pump distributes heat through the air ducts in your home.

The main determining factor in choosing a heat pump is climate. A heat pump is not the best choice in areas that get extremely cold, since it requires transferring cold air from outside the home and warming it up for distribution inside the home—the colder the air outside of the home, the harder the heat pump would have to work to warm up the inside of the home, making this an inefficient heating system for colder climates.

Facts:

A furnace works to keep a home warm in the winter and plays a critical part in the operation of an air conditioning system.
Furnaces produce heat through the combustion of natural gas in the furnace’s burner. The heat produced from this process then passes through a heat exchanger. Air from your home’s return air ducts is blown over the heat exchanger, thus warming the air.
The furnace’s blower then blows the warmed air into the ductwork, which carries and disperses the warmed air throughout the home.
During warmer months, the blower inside a furnace continues to circulate return air throughout the home–only this time, the return air has been cooled by being blown over the indoor coil portion of the home’s split-system air conditioning system. The evaporator coil is typically installed downstrean of the furnace.

Benefits:

Indoor warmth any time it is required.
Energy efficiency -The efficiency of a furnace can be determined by its AFUE–or Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency. The minimum efficiency level for furnaces currently manufactured in the U.S. is 80% AFUE. A rating of “80% AFUE” means that for every dollar you spend heating your home; 80 cents are actually applied to the generation of warmth. Compared to many of the 60% AFUE furnaces in older homes, 80% AFUE furnaces are a significant improvement. However, for enhanced energy efficiency, you may wish to consider a 95% AFUE furnace, such as Goodman’s line of 95% AFUE Furnaces.
Cleaner air – As your HVAC system draws air out of various rooms in the house through return air ducts, the air is pulled through an air filter, which removes airborne particles such as dust and lint. Sophisticated filters may remove microscopic pollutants, as well. The filtered air is then routed to air supply ductwork that carries it back to rooms. Whenever the HVAC system is running, this cycle repeats continually, constantly filtering and cleaning the air in your home.
1. This cleaning process improves with the installation of a variable-speed furnace. Variable-speed furnaces use variable-speed blowers, which shift between several speeds. These furnaces will run longer at a low speed, which causes them to filter the indoor air more frequently.
2. And remember – because the furnace plays an important role in the operation of the air conditioner, its variable-speed blower helps maintain both a consistent indoor temperature and improved air quality year-round.