If your furnace has been getting old or is just costing you more money than you would like, then it might be time for an upgrade. However, shopping for a new heater can be a real hassle, particularly if you don't know exactly what you're looking for. Some options will be cheap to install, while others might offer better efficiency. To help you find the heater that is perfect for your home, here are some of the more popular alternatives to a central furnace:
Space Heaters
A space heater is the best choice if you value mobility or are only looking to heat a small portion of your home at any given time. If you plan on moving the heater around, particularly between buildings, then a space heater will be much more useful than a central heating system. While a furnace will usually offer better efficiency of heat per dollar, a space heater won't waste energy heating your entire home when you only want a small area to get heat. There are two main types of space heaters to choose from as well.
Radiant – Radiant space heaters are great when you want to get heat immediately, since they transfer heat directly to you.
Convection – On the other hand, convection heaters excel when you want to heat up a room over time and keep it warm after the heater has been turned off. This is because convection heaters actually heat up the air in the room, which means that the heat will stick around for a long time.
Heat Pumps
Heat pumps work as air conditioners that can be reversed, which means that they can add or extract heat from your home, depending on what you need. They are very cheap to run when you only want to raise or lower the temperature of your home by a couple degrees, but if you are dealing with an extremely cold winter, then heating your home with a heat pump will be very expensive. Again, there are two main types to choose from:
Air-Source – These units extract heat from the air, which means that they can pretty much be installed anywhere on the exterior of your home that you have space. This means low installation costs, but they can take a hit in efficiency when it comes to very cold winters.
Geothermal – On the other hand, you have geothermal heat pumps, which are installed beneath your home. This allows them to extract heat directly from the soil, which has a lot more heat than the air when it comes to cold winters. This translates into lower operating costs than an air-source unit in winter, but also fairly high upfront costs for the installation.
For more information, talk to a professional like Advanced Heating & Air Inc.
Share14 March 2016
Hi there, my name is Shelley. Welcome to my site about electric heating systems. Electric heat has recently fallen out of favor due to the efficiency of natural gas systems. Electric heat is still suitable for small buildings that do not need the high temps provided by upgraded systems. I will use this site to explore all of the building types that can benefit from electric heating systems. I will also share information about system components, installations and repairs. I welcome you to come by often to learn more about this exciting topic. Thanks for coming by. See you soon.