Furnace Installation in Annapolis, MD
A new furnace here will run from October through April every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Anne Arundel County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Seven months of heat asks a lot of a furnace
From October through April your furnace runs, not just a month or two. Winter nights here average 29 degrees, and it has to keep up on every one of them.
Almost half of homes in the area heat with electricity, and Maryland has seen real power loss, 11 percent of households last year went at least a day without it. Annapolis has also logged winter storms and damaging wind over the past ten years. Any new furnace should hold up to that, and every new non-weatherized gas furnace now has to reach 80 percent AFUE, the federal minimum.
- 7 months
- October through April, your furnace is on duty
- 29°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 80% AFUE
- the federal minimum any new unit must meet
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
Maryland requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
Maryland tests HVAC contractors before licensing them, and the Board of Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Contractors keeps that record on file. The license belongs to the contractor, not to any single job, so it is the business itself that carries the state's approval from one furnace install to the next.
For a furnace going in, that license is what stands behind the person doing the work. In most cities and counties, an installation like this also needs a permit from the local building office and an inspection once the work is done, and that inspection is what checks the gas connections and the rest of the job on site. The license says who is allowed to do the work. The permit and inspection say the work was done right.
Sources: Maryland General Assembly · Maryland Department of Labor
- What size furnace does my house need?
- The right size comes from a load calculation, not the square footage of your house. A contractor measures your insulation, your windows, your ceiling height, and how much of the house faces north, then runs that through a Manual J calculation to find the number. A furnace that's too big will short cycle and wear out faster. One that's too small will run constantly and still not keep up on a night near 29 degrees. Have a contractor do the calculation rather than go by the size of the unit you're replacing, since that one may have been wrong too.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- Age matters, but so does how the furnace is behaving now. Watch for uneven heat between rooms, a furnace that cycles on and off more than it used to, or a rise in your gas or electric bill with no other explanation. If a repair costs close to what a new furnace would, most contractors will tell you to replace it instead of patching an old one. With heat needed here from October through April, a furnace that's struggling now is worth dealing with before the cold months, not during them.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- It depends on how long you plan to stay in the house and what you're replacing. Every non-weatherized gas furnace sold new today has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE, so even a standard model wastes less fuel than older units did. A high-efficiency furnace goes further, sending less heat out the flue and more into your house, which matters more here given the 7 months a year homes need heat. Ask a contractor to walk through the numbers for your specific furnace and house before you decide.