If you’re looking at installing a new furnace in your home, now is a great time to do it. You can get a tax credit from the government for buying a high-efficiency furnace, but you may need to know a little bit about how furnaces are rated so that you can make the best possible choice for your home.

The most obvious rating for furnaces is the one assigned by the Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency. This rating basically looks at the percentage of heat produced for every dollar’s worth of fuel that your furnace consumers. Today, all furnaces have to be at least 78% efficient, which means that 78% of the fuel that is consumed by your furnace actually goes to heat your home.

Obviously, then, the higher the AFUE rating of the furnace you choose, the more money the furnace will save you. If you buy an 80% efficient furnace, you’ll lose 20% of your fuel costs into empty space, and if you buy a 90% efficient furnace, you’ll only waste 10% of your energy costs. Chances are likely that a furnace that’s more than a decade old will be losing you more than 20% of your energy costs, so a new high-efficiency furnace can save you a lot of money.

While a furnace’s rating is really important, it isn’t the only important thing that you should consider when selecting a furnace. For instance, furnaces consume not only oil or natural gas but also electricity, which runs their fans and motors. Different furnaces will consume different amounts of electricity, so buying a furnace that is not only efficient with your gas or oil but also with your electricity can save you money on your energy bills.

One of the most electrically efficient types of furnaces is one with a variable speed motor. These motors help precisely control the flow of the air in your home by turning off and on or moving at different speed during different times. These types of motors can save you lots of money on your electric bill.

Another way to save energy is to find a furnace that has two-stage heating, which means that it puts out high heat on very cold days and lower heat on milder days. Most of the time, the furnace will run at the lower heat output, which means that it will use less energy on these days.

Combining the actual AFUE ratings of the furnaces you’re choosing with the knowledge of its electrical efficiency and the type of heating that it offers can help you make the best choice on an energy-efficient furnace. You can basically save yourself even more money by doing the research on the type of furnace you’re buying rather than simply buying a furnace that happens to have a high energy-efficiency rating. Even some Energy Star rated furnaces could cause your electrical bills to rise – or at least not to fall when you replace your furnace – so be sure that you look at all the aspects of your furnace before you buy a new one.

If you’re like most people right now, you’re probably trying to figure out how to save money whenever you can. One of the best ways to do this is to cut down on your heating and cooling bills. You can save lots of money on these with an energy efficient furnace, but you can also save money on the actual furnace. There are lots of ways that you can save money with a new furnace, and here are just a few.

First off, a new energy efficient furnace will save you lots of money on your HVAC system if you buy it before the end of 2010. If you buy a new furnace that meets government restrictions between now and then, you can get a 30% credit back on your taxes. When we’re talking about something as expensive as a new furnace, 30% could be quite a lot of money. You can, in fact, save up to $1,500 on a new heating and cooling system for your home.

This tax credit is even better than your typical tax deduction, since it will go toward your taxes dollar-for-dollar. With a typical deduction, you can only get a dollar deduction off of your taxes up to a certain amount, but with this tax credit, the government will give you exactly 30% – up to $1,500 – of the cost of your new energy-efficient furnace. This money will either come in your tax check if you get a rebate, or it will act as a credit towards the amount you owe the government at the end of the year.

Secondly, buying a new energy efficient furnace will also save you money on furnace repair bills. When your old furnace is more than a decade old, chances are likely that you’ll have to pay a lot more to keep it running over the years. A brand new furnace, on the other hand, will cost more on the front end, but it will save you money over the years, since you’ll very rarely have to pay for an actual repair. Plus, many furnaces will come with a warranty, so you can count on someone else to pay for any possible repairs that you’ll need in the next few years.

Finally, and probably most obviously, a new energy efficient furnace can save you lots of money on your energy bills over the years. If you live in an area with cold, long winters, a new furnace can save you between $500 and $1,000 a year. This, alone, means that your new furnace will pay for itself within a few years. If you combine this with the government’s tax credit, you can easily buy a brand new furnace that will make up for its cost in just a couple of years.

As you can see, there are plenty of ways that you can save with a new energy efficient furnace, and even if you think that you can’t afford a new furnace installation right now, you can probably find a good deal on a new furnace for your home. Over time, this will be totally worthwhile.

 

 

If you’re looking at buying a new heating and cooling system for your home, you need to find ways to save money. If you’re like most consumers, you want to buy a high quality, high efficiency system that will help you pay less to keep your home comfortable over the next several years. Saving money and getting the best in HVAC systems may seem contradictory, but you actually can do both, especially right now!

Look for Special Deals

You can get systems like these on special deals from some companies, and you should always be on the lookout for specials on heating and cooling systems if you’re looking to replace yours anytime in the next year or two. These specials can really save you a ton of cash.

Get the Right Size

Buying the right size furnace or air conditioner is vital to saving money on your heating and cooling bills and on the actual equipment. Getting a bigger size isn’t always a better idea, as it can leave you with not only a more expensive system but also more expensive bills, since furnaces and air conditioners that are too large for the area they’re heating are generally much less efficient than furnaces and air conditioners of the right size.

 Apply for the Tax Credit

This is probably your biggest and best way to save on heating and cooling between now and the end of 2010. You can actually get a tax credit from the government when you buy new, energy-efficient appliances like furnaces and central air conditioners. Basically, this means that if you buy the right sort of HVAC equipment over the next year or so, you will be able to save a whole lot of money.

In order to get the credit, though, you have to buy the right kind of system. The kind you have to buy, though, is just the kind of energy-efficient system that will keep your heating and cooling bills as low as possible. The system that you’ll need to get will have to be at least 90% efficient, but this extra efficiency will save you money both now and later.

When you buy your new furnace or air conditioner – air source heat pumps and hot water boilers count, too – simply save both your receipt and the manufacturer’s certification for the appliance. Then, when you do your taxes – or have someone else do them – at the end of the year, you can take that receipt in and apply for the tax credit.

This credit, though, doesn’t work like a tax deduction, which only takes away a certain percentage of your taxable income. Instead, it’s basically like the government writes you a check; if you owe them money, they simply take the amount of the check away from the payment you owe, and if they owe you money, they’ll put that check in with the rest of your tax rebate.

You can get a rebate for 30% of the cost of your new appliances up to $15,000. The only time this doesn’t hold true is if you’re putting in super-efficient appliances that don’t need fossil fuels or natural gas to run. Geo-thermal heat pumps, for instance, have no dollar-amount limit, and the government will write you a check for 30% of the cost, no matter what it is.