Furnace Installation in Vernal, UT
A new furnace here will run from September through May every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Uintah County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Nine months of heat in Vernal
Your furnace here runs September through May. Winter nights average 13°F, and most homes in Uintah County heat with gas. That is a long season and a hard one, and the furnace that carries it needs to start every time.
Any new gas furnace built now has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE, so that floor is set. What matters more is sizing it right for nights that cold and getting it installed so it starts reliably for nine months straight.
- 9 months
- September through May, your furnace is on duty
- 13°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 60%
- of homes here heat with gas, so most furnaces here burn gas
- 80% AFUE
- the federal minimum any new unit must meet
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A high-efficiency gas furnace would save about $110 a year to run in Uintah County compared with a gas furnace.
Estimates for a typical Uintah County home, from EIA household energy data, Utah fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
Utah requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The Division of Professional Licensing tests and records the contractor. The license covers that contractor, not this particular job. In Utah, work under $7,000 does not need a licensed contractor, so a furnace installation over that amount is the kind of job the license is meant to stand behind.
A furnace installation in most Utah cities and counties needs a permit from the local building office, with an inspection once the work is finished. That inspection is what catches a bad gas connection, the part of this job where a mistake turns dangerous. In Uintah County, 60.2% of homes heat with gas, so that inspection is checking the thing most furnaces in this county actually run on.
Sources: Utah State Legislature · Utah Department of Commerce
- What size furnace does my house need?
- The right size comes from a load calculation, not a guess based on square footage. A contractor measures your home's insulation, windows, ceiling height, and layout, then figures out how much heat it actually loses on a cold night. That matters here, since winter lows average 13°F and the furnace has to keep up from September through May. Too big and it short-cycles, wearing out parts faster. Too small and it runs constantly without ever catching up.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- An older furnace working harder than it used to is the first sign, especially if repairs are coming more often and costing more each time. Rising gas bills without a change in how you use heat point the same direction. If a contractor tells you the heat exchanger is cracked, that's not a repair, that's a replacement, since a cracked exchanger can let combustion gases into your air. With 9 months of heating season here, a furnace that's struggling has a long stretch of the year to prove it.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- It depends on how long you plan to stay in the house and what your current furnace is costing you to run. Furnaces made after November 2015 already have to hit 80 percent AFUE at minimum, so the real question is whether stepping up further makes sense for your situation. With 60.2% of homes in Uintah County heating with gas and nine months of the year needing heat, a more efficient furnace burns less fuel to produce the same warmth over that stretch. A contractor can walk through your current furnace's efficiency and your gas usage, and price out what a higher-efficiency model would mean installed, so you're comparing real numbers instead of a general rule.