Shivering With a Skimpy Furnace
This furnace was sized carefully to match the heat loss of the house.
(By Tim Carter -- Tribune Media Services)
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Q: DEAR TIM: Are all heating systems the same? Mine is running constantly and can maintain a temperature of only 67 degrees in my home. It's below zero outdoors. But still, I would expect the house to be comfortable even if the temperature outside is bitterly cold. Why is my heating system not able to keep up? What can be done to keep me warm when it gets really cold? -- Valerie G., Lafayette, Ind.
A: DEAR VALERIE: You may be a victim of an undersized furnace or heating system.
Perhaps the best way to explain the situation is by analogy. Imagine using a small gardening wheelbarrow to haul a load of gravel that fits in a pickup truck. The wheelbarrow can handle only so much soil or gravel before the excess spills over the sides. In the same way, heating systems can handle only so much before cold temperatures overwhelm them.
Heating contractors have the ability to calculate the heat loss of your home. That's the actual term -- heat loss -- and it's a measurement of how many BTUs of heat your home loses each hour in its battle with cold temperatures.
When your house was built, the heating contractor should have taken all sorts of measurements to calculate the heat loss accurately. This is done on a room-by-room basis so the contractor can make sure each room gets the heat necessary to make it comfortable. These calculations are based upon a seasonal-average low temperature in your area. When Old Man Winter drops the temperature far below this average for days on end, your furnace can't deal with the larger deviation.
The colder it gets outdoors, the more BTUs your home loses in an hour. Assuming your home is at 72 degrees and it's 60 degrees outdoors, your home will stay comfortable. But if it's minus-25 degrees outdoors, the temperature inside will drop like a rock. Your furnace or boiler works to offset this leakage of heat to the outdoors, but when it gets bitterly cold, it simply can't compensate for the amount of heat that's being lost each hour.
You can install a bigger furnace if you like, but in mild weather, it will run you out of the house as it produces vast amounts of heat in a short amount of time. If your home has forced-air heat, the air floats out of the ducts at a lower velocity in a perfectly balanced system. This means no whistling noises at the registers. You want gentle amounts of air flowing from the ducts, keeping you warm without noise.
To keep yourself warm now, I suggest wearing more clothes. It's important to keep your hands and feet warm even inside your home.
If and when you get a new furnace or boiler, be sure you see the calculations that are required to show your actual heat loss. The original contractor may have undersized your heating system. It's really important that your system is sized to match the actual heat loss.
Tim Carter can be contacted via his Web site, http:/
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