When searching for a new heating system, especially furnaces, people tend to disregard one of the most important qualities of a prospective system: its size. The size of a furnace is just as important to its efficiency as any other quality, yet it is ignored much of the time. Installing a furnace in your home that is too large or too small can actually have a huge negative effect, up to and including early system breakdown and replacement. Read on to find out more about what happens when your furnace is the wrong size for your home.
Oversized Furnaces
Furnaces are designed to put out a certain amount of heat over a certain amount of time before turning off. This is known as a heating cycle. These heating cycles are set based on the amount of space a furnace is expected to heat. If the furnace installed in your home is too large, it will put out too much heat and will shut down before its cycle can be completed. This behavior, called “short cycling,” puts an immense amount of strain on the furnace. Eventually, the entire system will break down as a result of this behavior
Undersized Furnaces
An undersized furnace will also have its cycle thrown off, but in the opposite way from oversized furnaces. Furnaces that are too small for the homes in which they are installed will run for far longer than they were designed to do, in an attempt to heat a space that they are not equipped to handle. This leads to just as much wear and tear on the system as oversized furnaces experience, with the same result of system breakdowns.
If you need help sizing your furnace properly, call Sound Heating. We offer a full range of furnace services throughout Tacoma, WA.