Heating and cooling systems are essential for maintaining comfort and safety as temperatures fluctuate throughout the year. As you begin exploring options for a new system, you’ll quickly discover that there’s a wide variety to choose from. The following article will cover some of the most common HVAC systems and highlight the ones best suited for different climate types.
Furnaces
Furnaces, often called forced-air heating systems, use ductwork to distribute heat throughout your home. Manufacturers design them to run on one of four different types of fuel. These include natural gas, propane, heating oil, and electricity.
Regardless of how it produces heat, your furnace will have a blower fan that’s responsible for moving air throughout your home. It will pull air into the unit and pass it over the heat exchanger, where the air absorbs the furnace’s heat directly. The now-warm air is circulated back into the rooms of your home to raise their temperature.
Fossil fuel-burning furnaces are popular in cold climates, as they provide a lot of heat quickly. In contrast, electric furnaces are less common because they generally take longer to warm a home and are more expensive to operate due to the price of electricity. However, they remain a good option for smaller, well-insulated houses as it’s cheaper to install them, and they take up less space than the fuel-burning variety.
Condensing furnaces are an increasingly preferred option over traditional fuel-burning furnaces due to their superior efficiency. Unlike conventional furnaces that waste heat through exhaust gases, condensing furnaces capture and reuse this heat by condensing water vapor from the flue gases. This process involves a secondary heat exchanger that extracts additional heat from the gases before venting them outside. As a result, condensing furnaces can achieve efficiency ratings of up to 98%, meaning less energy waste and lower utility bills.
Boilers
Unlike systems that rely on ductwork, boilers use radiators to distribute heat throughout your home. Depending on its design, a boiler can run on heating oil, natural gas, propane, or electricity. Instead of heating the air, a boiler heats water using a burner, a process similar to that of a furnace.
Homeowners in cold climates often prefer boilers because they provide consistent, even heating, ideal for battling frigid temperatures. One of the standout benefits of boilers is their compatibility with radiant underfloor heating systems, where heated water circulates through pipes embedded in the floor, warming the room from the ground up. This method ensures a comfortable, evenly distributed heat without the drafts often associated with forced-air systems. Additionally, boilers tend to operate more quietly, have fewer moving parts, and maintain better humidity levels, making them an efficient and low-maintenance option for home heating.
Heat Pumps
A heat pump transfers heat rather than generating it, making it an energy-efficient option for heating and cooling your home. It uses electricity to circulate a refrigerant, which absorbs heat from one area and releases it into another. During the winter, the heat pump’s outdoor unit extracts heat from the air even when it’s cold outside. The refrigerant inside the outdoor coil absorbs this heat as it passes through, becoming warmer in the process.
The system’s compressor then pumps the heated refrigerant indoors, where it flows into the evaporator coil inside the air handler. As air from your home passes over this coil, the heat from the refrigerant is released into the air, warming your home. The blower fan then distributes this warm air through your ductwork. After releasing its heat, the refrigerant circulates back outside, passing through an expansion valve that reduces its pressure and cools it down, ready to absorb more heat.
One of the innovative features of a heat pump is its reversing valve, which allows it to work in reverse during the summer. In this mode, it absorbs heat from inside your home and releases it outside, effectively cooling your living spaces. This versatility makes heat pumps an efficient year-round climate control solution.
While heat pumps are effective for heating homes, they become less efficient in colder climates. When outdoor temperatures drop to near freezing, there’s less heat available in the air for the heat pump to extract, making it struggle to maintain warmth. As a result, the system switches to an auxiliary heating mode, activating an internal electric heating element to provide additional warmth. This backup mode consumes a lot of electricity, making the heat pump less efficient and more expensive to operate in consistently cold weather. For this reason, heat pumps are often better suited for milder climates that don’t experience prolonged freezing temperatures, like in Arizona.
Ductless Mini-Split System
A ductless mini-split system uses a heat pump but doesn’t require traditional ductwork, making it a versatile option for many homes. It consists of two main components: an outdoor compressor unit and one or more indoor air handler units. Each indoor unit contains its own evaporator coil, blower, and thermostat, allowing it to distribute heated or cooled air into a specific room or zone.
Ductless mini-split installations are ideal for homes without existing ductwork, new additions, or spaces where extending ductwork isn’t practical. Their zoned heating and cooling capabilities allow homeowners to customize the temperature in different areas, making them an energy-efficient and flexible solution in milder climates.
Central Air Conditioning
Homeowners who use a furnace or boiler for heating need a separate central air conditioning system to cool their homes. A central air conditioning unit operates similarly to a heat pump in cooling mode by using refrigerant to transfer heat from inside the home to the outside. As warm indoor air passes over the evaporator coil, the refrigerant absorbs heat from the air, cooling it before it circulates back into the home through ductwork.
The process also removes humidity, a significant advantage in maintaining indoor comfort. As the refrigerant absorbs heat, it condenses moisture from the air, which collects in a drain pan and exits the system through a condensate drain line. This dehumidification makes central air conditioning particularly effective in humid climates, as it not only cools the home but also helps maintain a comfortable, drier environment.
Choosing the Right System For Your Camp Verde Home
A heat pump can be an ideal investment in a mild climate like Camp Verde, where temperatures only occasionally drop below freezing in December, January, and February. Not only does it provide both heating and cooling, eliminating the need for separate systems, but it also requires less maintenance overall. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, heat pumps can be up to 50% more efficient than traditional heating systems, such as furnaces and boilers, especially in moderate climates. This increased efficiency can lead to significant energy savings, making heat pump installation an excellent choice for keeping your home comfortable year-round.
Contact the Pros
At Goettl's High Desert Mechanical, we have been serving the residents of Camp Verde and the surrounding areas since 1987. We install, maintain, and repair heating and cooling systems. Additionally, we can help with all your plumbing and indoor air quality needs. Contact us today to schedule an appointment with one of our talented technicians.
