It’s easy to look up the prices for gas, oil, and electric furnaces on the Internet, but it can be a lot trickier to make sure you’re getting a good one. Furnace cost is a major issue for most homeowners, who don’t really know all that much about it. Just what should a good furnace cost, and how do you know whether a more efficient one is a good idea? Let’s take a look at the real costs of buying a more expensive, but more efficient furnace versus furnace costs for a cheaper one.

Heating and cooling currently account for about a third of the electricity we use, and almost three quarters of our natural gas use. High heating and cooling bills are a big concern for many people, with natural gas and oil prices rising through the winter. It depends on how cold it’s going to get, but don’t plan for easy winters when you buy your next furnace.

What are general furnace costs when it comes to operation? The Berkeley stats say that a low efficiency furnace runs at about seventy-eight percent (many older furnaces are doing even worse than this). One of these furnaces, new, would cost a little over a thousand dollars. A higher efficiency furnace, such as a ninety-three percent efficiency model, may cost as much as half again more. Most bargain hunters are going to opt for the lower furnace cost!

But is that such a good idea? Take a look at your heating bills. It’s not uncommon to pay as much as three hundred dollars a month or more to keep your home heated. The Berkeley study says that out of that three hundred dollars, a little more than two hundred is going to heating the average house (if you ignore heating hot water). If your cold season is only about six months, that means you’re spending about twelve hundred dollars on heat. The total cost of that furnace is about twenty-five hundred dollars, in that case, or thirteen and a half thousand over the course of ten years.

Furnace costs for a ninety-three percent efficient furnace are about fifteen percent less for operation. While the furnace costs more, the bills are lower – about a thousand dollars a year. Over ten years, you’re going to have a total furnace cost, including purchase and operation, of about twelve thousand dollars. That’s a savings of fifteen hundred dollars, assuming that your gas rate never goes up. How many of us believe that’s going to happen.

Higher efficiency is better, and a good furnace is going to cost a lot more up front. However, it’s worth it in the long run! A truly efficient furnace will cost you less as the years go by – a lot less!