Furnace Installation in Elkhart, IN
A new furnace here will run from October through May every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Elkhart County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
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Elkhart County asks a furnace to work eight months of the year
From October through May your furnace is the thing standing between your family and a house that averages 20°F on a winter night. That is eight months of runtime, not a few cold snaps. Most homes here heat with gas, so that furnace is doing the job the whole neighborhood depends on.
A new furnace installed here has to be built for that stretch, and by law it is. Any non-weatherized gas furnace made since November 2015 has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE, so the unit going into your house is required to convert most of the fuel it burns into heat rather than send it up the flue. Elkhart County also sees its share of winter storms and wind that can knock out power, so it is worth asking your contractor how your new furnace behaves when the power drops and comes back.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 20°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 81%
- 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 $100 a year to run in Elkhart County compared with a gas furnace.
Estimates for a typical Elkhart County home, from EIA household energy data, Indiana fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
In Indiana, HVAC licensing for homes is left to the counties and cities.
Elkhart County sets its own rule rather than following a state one, so whether a contractor needs a local license depends on the city or township the house sits in rather than any statewide standard. Indiana keeps no central record of HVAC contractors, tested or otherwise, so there's no license number to check against a state list here.
For a furnace install, the protection comes from the permit process instead. Most cities and counties in the area require a permit before the old furnace comes out, and an inspection once the new one is in and running. That inspection is where the gas connection and venting get checked, which matters most on a job like this since a bad connection is the dangerous part of installing a gas furnace. With most homes in Elkhart County heating with gas, that inspection is doing real work here.
Sources: Indiana Department of Workforce Development · State of Indiana
- What size furnace does my house need?
- It depends on your square footage, your insulation, your windows, and your ceiling height, so there is no number you can figure from the outside alone. A contractor sizes it with a load calculation that looks at your actual house, not a chart based on square footage alone. Too big and it short cycles, heating fast but never running long enough to feel even. Too small and it runs constantly without keeping up, and that matters here with 8 months of heating season and winter nights averaging 20°F. Get the calculation done rather than matching the size of the furnace you have now, since that one may have been wrong to begin with.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- Age is the first thing to look at. An older furnace works harder to keep up than it used to, and parts get harder to find. Watch for uneven heat between rooms, a furnace that cycles on and off more than it used to, or a gas bill that keeps climbing without a reason. If a repair is going to cost close to what a new furnace would, replacing it makes more sense than patching it again, especially with heat needed here from October through May. A contractor can tell you where your furnace stands and whether the next repair is worth making.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- For a house here, running the furnace October through May, the efficiency rating matters more than it would somewhere with a short winter. Any furnace built since November 2015 has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE, so even a standard furnace now wastes less fuel than an old one might have. A high-efficiency furnace goes beyond that minimum, pulling more heat out of the same gas, and it vents differently, through PVC pipe instead of a metal flue. Whether the higher upfront cost is worth it depends on how long you plan to stay in the house and what you're paying for gas, and a contractor can walk through those numbers for your specific home.