Heating Your Home Is All About AFUE

If you think of heating your home like traveling in your car, you can more easily understand your home’s energy efficiency. In the auto world, 'miles per gallon' (MPG) of gasoline is the measure of how efficient the vehicle operates. If you get 30MPG, you understand that it potentially takes a distance of 30 miles to consume 1 gallon of gasoline.

When it comes to heating your home, the concept of fuel efficiency is the same, the terms and measurements are just different. However, you still typically want the optimal 'distance' or length of heating usage for the lowest amount of fuel consumed in that length.

In the home heating industry, this fuel efficiency measurement is called AFUE, Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency. The 'length' of use measured is a standard of one calendar year. The amount of fuel used to heat your home within that year denotes how efficient the heating equipment actually is.  Similar to MPG, the AFUE rating of a furnace is determined by the U.S. Department of Energy and is a simple measure of efficiency by percentage.  The higher the percentage the less fuel that is consumed by the furnace to heat your home.

Here's a simple way to understand the concept and potential savings. We'll compare a 95% AFUE furnace to an 65% AFUE furnace. Remember to think of the heating and air conditioning system in your home is an 'engine', with the goal being less fuel use for a single time period. For example:

  • 95% AFUE furnace = approximately $863 in yearly heating costs for Chicago IL

  • 65% AFUE furnace = approximately $1,261 in yearly heating costs for Chicago IL

It’s important to note that different regions of the country will naturally use more fuel due to colder temperatures.  Like a car’s MPG, furnace AFUE helps take the regional variances into account and provides a method to compare different types of furnaces, and provides homeowners with a means to evaluate average operating costs. As you can see, there is $398 in annual savings with the higher efficiency 95% AFUE furnace used in this example.

Over five year's time, that's nearly $2,000! (And that's not counting any annual increases in home energy prices.)

Many older furnaces operate at an efficiency level well below 70%. That's because it wasn't until 1992 that the U.S. Department of Energy created new standards requiring at least 78% furnace efficiency.

The point is, if you happen to have high-cost heating repair services that need to be done to keep your home warm throughout the winter heating season, consider the savings a high efficiency heating or furnace equipment might save you in wasted utility dollars. Your savings may vary, and they may be significantly more than this example. If you would like a free furnace replacement consultation and home energy analysis, just find a Service Experts location near you and call us today. And don't forget, you may even be eligible for new Tax Credits!

Posted: 11/3/2008 4:00:00 AM by Sam