Heating Your Home with Natural Gas this Winter

When it comes to keeping your home warm in the winter, there are a few boxes we all want to check off. Most of all, we need heat this is affordable, reliable, and safe. If you’re exploring your options for a home heating system, the option where you’ll find these three priorities intersect more than any other is a natural gas furnace. Let’s talk about the top three benefits of natural gas heating in your household!

Safety of Heating with Natural Gas

Your family’s safety is a factor in every household decision you make. That’s why choosing how to heat your home is a big decision. Of all the forms of energy available to heat your home, natural gas is among the safest. A natural gas furnace “produces minimal sulfur dioxide, airborne particulates, and dissolved solids, which can negatively impact the health of your loved ones – people and pets. With a well-maintained, properly operating heating system, natural gas generates nearly no carbon monoxide.”

One of the other benefits of natural gas heating is its significant regulatory oversight. For instance, maintaining high federal safety standards for the construction, inspection, and maintenance of underground natural gas pipelines. Additionally, there is various state legislation around the country that ensures responsibility and accountability for every step of the process of supplying homes and businesses with natural gas. Taking safety standards seriously is one of the most important benefits of natural gas heating.

Reliability of a Natural Gas Heating System

In the bitterly cold months of winter, the prospect of your home heating system working poorly or breaking down is stressful to think about. Your home should be comfortable all year round, a refuge from the snow, wind, and ice dominating the outdoors. Ironically, some energy sources are the least reliable when you need them the most, like during a severe storm that knocks out the electricity.

In the event of a power outage, you can still heat your home with a natural gas furnace, at least keeping warm while you wait for the lights to come back on. This is not only important for keeping you comfortable, but it’s also a useful precaution for your plumbing system. You do not want those pipes to freeze after prolonged exposure to below-freezing temperatures.

But that’s not the only reason why reliability is among the chief benefits of natural gas heating systems. The fuel is delivered directly into your home from an underground pipeline. This makes it more accessible than electricity, propane, or oil. Accidents and inclement weather can affect the power lines that come between your home and the electricity powering it. Trucks deliver oil and propane, and this extra step makes a difference at the end of the day!

Natural gas appliances are reliable, and never disconnected from their supply. Also, a natural gas furnace is built to function with high efficiency for roughly 20 years. With the same maintenance and care, a natural gas furnace will typically outlive an oil, electric, or propane furnace installed at the same starting point. This is also generally true with a natural gas water heater vs. an electric water heater or boiler.

Affordability of Heating with Natural Gas

Natural gas is generally more affordable than any other fossil fuel you can use to heat your home. This is partly due to the efficient design of modern natural gas furnaces. This greatly reduces the amount of heat escaping up your chimney or flue pipe. Instead of drifting out of your home as wasted energy (and money), your heat is contained and harnessed, maximizing the value of your system.

Another factor is fuel costs, as burning natural gas is typically less expensive than using other fuels, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Sure, they can be expensive to install. But the long-term affordability is by far one of the best benefits of natural gas heating use for a homeowner. The higher efficiency, lower fuel costs, and long lifespan of a natural gas furnace will generate surprisingly low energy bills year after year.

The Benefits of Natural Gas Heating Don’t Stop There

There are many other reasons why natural gas heating a great option for is heating your home. For instance, its greater efficiency makes it cleaner for the environment than fossil fuels or electricity. And this produces the highest carbon dioxide emissions. It can also increase your home’s resale value as well. Additionally, use it for your appliances around the house. Natural gas provides hot water as well as power your clothes dryer.

If you are considering converting to a natural gas heating system, feel free to give us a call. We are experts at the gas conversion process and would love the opportunity to help!

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