As you prepare for fall, you might look at your current furnace and wonder if it’s time to replace it. Regular maintenance for a furnace in the fall can usually get the heater through the winter, but even maintenance has limits. No furnace will last forever, and getting a new furnace can make a huge difference for your home. 

Below we’ll look at the best reasons to retire your current furnace and arrange for a new furnace installation in Indianapolis. Call us with any questions you have. If you’re uncertain about getting a new furnace, we can consult with you to help you make the best decision.

How old is “too old” when it comes to a furnace? It varies, but the standard service life for a gas furnace is around 15 years and for an electric furnace around 20. In general, 20 years should be the ceiling—we don’t advise pushing a furnace farther than this because many other risks, some of which we’ll list below, will start to emerge. A furnace this old has more than done its job: time to retire it. 

We want to reassure you that gas furnaces have many safety features and aren’t automatically dangerous. If you keep up with annual maintenance and always have repairs scheduled promptly, you shouldn’t have to worry about dangers from your furnace.

However, when a furnace gets up in years, the chance of hazardous malfunctions increase. If you’ve had a scare with your furnace where it triggered the CO detectors in your house, or a technician found cracks in the heat exchanger during the last visit, we strongly recommend you replace the furnace as soon as you can.

One of the signs of a furnace that’s coming to the end of its service life is when it begins to cost far more to run than it once did. When you notice a rise in your winter heating bills over the past few years that you can’t account for with energy price inflation or more use of the furnace, the culprit is probably a furnace that’s failing. 

We love our customers and like to get to know them. But if we’re becoming regular guests in your house to fix your furnace, something isn’t right with the furnace. Any heating system will need more repairs during the second half of its life than the first, but it shouldn’t need repairs more than once a year, or even every year. A furnace that needs that much help is wasting money. 

Are you dealing with cold spots or a house that doesn’t seem to get as warm as it used to? Instead of trying to push the furnace to provide more heat by shoving up the thermostat, schedule a replacement for the furnace. Uneven heating like this is one of the biggest signs of a furnace that’s close to a full breakdown.

Call Vital Heating & Air because “Your Comfort Is Vital!”