San Antonio Heating System

Though any measurable snow in San Antonio may be a once-in-a-decade event, the city tends to shut down and marvel at the occurrence. After all, you can imagine the city's budget for salt trucks. This reaction does help explain, however, why though it's needed for a short time period each year, San Antonio homeowners treat home heating as a must. It's just the way it works. Give someone from Minnesota a year or two to experience a south central Texas summer, and they, too, will need a respite from the moderate cold of a San Antonio winter. On the other hand, a traditional gas furnace in San Antonio, even a low capacity one, seems an unfortunately high expense for such a narrowly defined need. And you would be right. In today's scramble for newer energy-efficient technology, home heating and cooling is right next to automotive fuels in leading the charge for environmental sustainability.

San Antonio Gas Furnaces and Old Heating Systems
In San Antonio, gas furnaces and forced air heating systems are used for home heating. This technology replaced the relatively expensive radiators of decades past. Inexpensive to install, they also produced an uneven, dry heat that was tolerated for the sake of initial costs. If you have an air duct and vent system already in place, chances are you're not going to want to replace it for a mini-duct or ductless heating and cooling system. Still, unless you have a newer model, chances are your gas furnace isn't going to outlive your duct system. When it comes time to replace the unit, you may want to look at not only newer model gas furnaces, but altogether different heating methods.

A discourse the size of a US Department of Energy report could be relayed about the potential for newer sources of home heating, but this type of comprehensive treatment can't match one simple tip for homeowners in San Antonio: gas furnaces should be checked during the off-season. Think about it. Even if you know your gas furnace is getting up there in years, if it decides to go out during a week in which the temperatures are forecasted in the 40s, you're not going to want to wait for a new unit to be installed. An old San Antonio gas furnace repair that costs as much as $500 to repair is still going to look tempting when you're shivering in bed, even though that money might be best used toward a new heating source. Likewise, your frustration might cause to rush toward a new model gas furnace without taking the time to fully survey your options.

Newer Alternatives for San Antonio Heating Systems
In warm climates, such as San Antonio, your best bet is to look at heating technology that can also serve as air conditioning during the hot summer. Heat pumps, for example, work by transferring heat between your home and the outside air. During the winter, they grab warm air particles that are present even in freezing temperatures and pull them into your home. During the summer, the process is reversed, as the heat pump pulls warm air out of your home, similar to a refrigerating unit. Because they work with energy already present in the air, these units are extraordinarily energy-efficient.

Their drawback is that they may lack the cooling capacity to keep pace with the triple-digit temperatures of a San Antonio summer. Of course, you almost certainly have an air conditioning unit in place for your San Antonio home. If you have a gas furnace and an air conditioning unit that has put on a few years, however, you can replace your gas furnace with a heat pump and use the heat pump to take off much of the stress, and energy consumption, of your older air conditioning unit. Even more innovative heating solutions are out there, such as geothermal heat pumps that use the consistency of subterranean temperatures to heat and cool your home, albeit at a considerably high initial cost.

It's a safe bet to say that whatever you install will be outdated in ten or twenty years, but this doesn't mean you should wait around for the newest thing. Energy output is going the way of computer technology, where innovation makes everything outdated within half a generation. In other words, even if you wait around for a few years for the newest line of heat pumps, your model is still more likely than not to be outdated by the time the next two-term president leaves office.

Cost of San Antonio Heating Systems
Heat pumps aren't cheap by any means, but chances are you can find a model that isn't any more expensive than a new gas furnace, and one that will still more than take care of your heating needs in south central Texas. New San Antonio gas furnaces are reasonably energy-efficient in their own right, but at the very least, you should talk to a San Antonio HVAC contractor about the relative strengths and weaknesses of each type of installation before making a decision. Be sure to ask about energy efficiency, life expectancy, reliability, dual-purpose heating and cooling units, and of course, cost.