Heating equipment is found in the vast majority of residential homes and commercial buildings throughout the U.S. Obviously it gets used more often in the northern states but even here in Texas we have temperatures on occasion that require us to warm the indoor air in order to create a comfortable living environment. A good central heating system comprised of quality heating equipment allows us to do that efficiently.

                       

In order to understand how the temperature in your home is kept constant in the winter months, you need to know the basics of how your heating equipment works.

The basic component of your heating equipment system is the furnace. The furnace is usually located in the garage or it could be in the basement (if your home has a basement). The furnace has four basic functional components:

• Burners – are what burn the fuel and deliver it
• Heat exchangers – warm the air that blows across
• Blower – pushes the warmed air through the ducts to various points in your home
• Flue – acts as an exhaust system to rid your home of gaseous by-products

So, the overall process is this: the burners in the furnace generate combustible gases that passes over the heat exchanger. The air coming from your home also blows right across that same heat exchanger and is warmed. From that point, the warm air is blown through the ductwork then distributes the heat to all the points in the house that are requiring heat at the moment.

How does the heating equipment know where the heat is needed? Your home is divided into a few areas (or several areas, depending on the size of the home). These areas are called “zones” and each zone has its own thermostat. The thermostat can be adjusted up or down depending on the desired temperature for that area. At a minimum, each floor of the house should have a thermostat and some of the more common living areas may have more than one.

Another common component of heating equipment is the heat pump. Because of its name some people think that a heat pump is only used in the winter to bring heat into the home. In reality, it is used year round for both heating and cooling. The operation of the heat pump is based on the fact when air gets compressed it gets hotter and when it expands it gets cooler. Here’s an experiment to try: take your old hand-operated tire pump (the kind you use on a bicycle tire) and pump it up and down for a while. You will notice it getting warm – because the air is being compressed. Now, get a can of compressed air (the kind used to blow dust out from your computer). If you hold that nozzle down for more than a few seconds you will see that the air gets cold (it might even freeze up the nozzle if you held it long enough). That is the air expanding.

The heat pump has an interior unit and an exterior unit. The interior part compresses the gas (creating heat), which gets pumped into the interior unit. The gas passes over a series of coils giving off heat. Then it is sent back to the outside unit where it expands again and becomes cold. Now that it is cold, it is then compressed again and the cycle continues. For cooling in the summer the process is just reversed.

Heating equipment that is well-made and maintained properly will operate very efficiently. We our authorized dealers of all major brands: Trane, Carrier, American Standard, Lennox, Amana, Goodman, Payne, Bryant, York, Rheem, Rudd and many more.