Written on: January 29, 2024

How Does a Furnace Work?

A Furnace Distributes Warm Air Through Your Home

Today’s high-efficiency heating oil furnaces provide many Westmore Fuel customers with a great opportunity to increase their comfort while decreasing their energy usage. New furnaces can now heat a home using significantly less energy compared to older generation equipment.

Knowing more about how your furnace works will help you to make smart choices if you’re considering replacing your old heating system with a new, high-efficiency model. And if you’re having a heating problem, knowing more about how your furnace works will be helpful when you discuss the issue with our service technician.

Understanding Your Heating Oil Furnace

Also known as warm-air or forced-air systems, furnaces produce heated air in the combustion chamber.

• Inside an oil-fired furnace, the fuel is mixed with air and burned.
• The heat exchanger transfers the heat to the air, which is pushed through the heat exchanger by the furnace’s blower fan.
• The fan blows the heated air through a network of air ducts before the warm air exits through registers or vents throughout your home.
• Combustion gases are vented out of the building through a flue pipe.

The Advantage of Having a Furnace

Besides heat, the ductwork that connects with your furnace can provide other kinds of conditioned air, including through:

• a central air conditioning system
• a whole-house humidifier
• an air cleaning system or air purifier

Differences Between Old Furnaces and New Furnaces

• Older furnaces vent exhaust gases directly to the outside, but this wastes about 30% of the heat energy because the exhaust gases need to remain hot enough to rise through the chimney safely.
• Modern heating oil furnaces use an insulated flue pipe instead of a barometric damper. This improves venting and reduces heat loss.
• Modern-day heating oil furnaces can operate at a range of speeds and feature other efficiency-enhancing features including microprocessor-based controls, high-pressure flame-retention oil burners and durable heat exchangers.
• Advanced technology has also brought us the ultra-efficient condensing heating oil furnace, which recovers and uses some of the lost heat from gases that are otherwise wasted, thanks to a secondary heat exchanger.

Replacing Your Old Furnace

As noted, today’s high-efficiency furnaces provide extra heat more efficiently than units made a generation ago. Higher efficiency means more energy savings, which of course translates into lower energy costs. This is why it pays to learn as much as you can about today’s high-tech heating solutions—and Westmore Fuel is here to help you, with the installation of the latest high-efficiency heating oil furnaces.

Quality Furnace Installations from Westmore Fuel in CT and NY

Our knowledgeable installers examine your current system, not only the old furnace, but the ductwork as well. Where other heating companies may just replace the furnace connecting it to existing ductwork, we upgrade the ducts to ensure optimal hot air carrying capacity and flow.

Westmore’s installation team is our own, we never use contractors. That means we can stand behind our work and will be there for you in the years to come.

Westmore Fuel has been taking care of our customers in Darien, CT and other communities in Connecticut and New York since 1938. Contact us today to become a customer and get all that you want and need for your home comfort.