Achieve Incredible Comfort year round With Our High-Efficient Furnace Installation & Furnace Repair Services

Modern Furnace Installation

 Your furnace is probably the most important part of your HVAC system. Not only is it responsible for efficiently heating your home but it also plays a major role in keeping your home cool in the summer. 

  At ICE-HVAC, our furnace installations always start off with a high quality, reliable and efficient Lennox furnaces that can stand up to the most some of the most demanding weather patterns we experience in the Barrington, IL area. The furnace is responsible for pulling air from your return vents, conditioning the air to meet your demands set by the thermostat and then pushing the air throughout your homes supply vents. 

Winter Operation

  During the winter, the cool air from your homes return vents pass through the furnace’s heat exchanger(s) that warm the air. The heat exchangers are made up of stainless steel tubes that contain the hot air gasses produced by the burners. That air is then pushed into your supply plenum, a manifold after the heat exchangers where all of your supply vents are attached to. From there, the air is distributed by the individual ducts to your supply vents. 

 When you set your thermostat for heating, it sends a signal to the furnace to begin producing heat. This process starts by initiating a sequence of safety checks to make sure that the furnace can effectively begin the combustion process. When the burns ignite, the flames are drawn through the heat exchanger tubes by your inducer (exhaust) blower and  exit your home though the flue (exhaust) pipe. 

  Once the heat exchanger gets hot, the furnace blower fan turns on to pull the cool filtered air from your return vents passed the heat exchanger tubes to safely transfer the heat from the burners to the incoming air. This warmed air then travels through your supply vents and the process repeats until the temperature set on the thermostat is satisfied. 

Summer Operation

  During the summer, the warm air from your homes return vents passes through small fins on the evaporator coil that cool the incoming filtered return air. That air is then pushed into your supply plenum, a manifold after the evaporator coil where all of your supply vents are attached to. From there, the air is distributed by the individual ducts to your supply vents. 

  When you set your thermostat for cooling, it sends a signal to the condenser and fan to turn on. The condenser pressurizes the refrigerant and sends it through the copper lines into your evaporator coil. The condenser and evaporator coils are made up of mostly copper/aluminum tubes covered with aluminum fins that kind of look like your cars radiator. 

As air passes through these small fins, they help remove heat from the refrigerant at the condenser coil and absorb heat from the refrigerant at the evaporator coil. Once it reaches the coil, it goes through a small orifice or thermal expansion valve that vaporizes the refrigerant into the warm evaporator coil. When the refrigerant expands, it cools the evaporator coil to just above freezing temperatures. As the warm return air passes through your evaporator coil the refrigerant absorbs all the heat, reduces the humidity and returns to the condenser to be pressurized again and the process starts all over. 

High-Efficient Furnaces

  The main difference between a high-efficient +90%AFUE furnace and a standard 80%AFUE furnace is the presence of a secondary heat exchanger. The combustion process produces both heated gasses and water vapor as a byproduct. A standard efficiency furnace will transfer about 80% of the heat produced by combustion to the air in your home and send the remaining 20% out the flue (exhaust).

  A high efficient furnace takes that 20% wasted by the standard efficiency furnace and pushes it through a secondary heat exchanger to let the air in your home absorb up to 99.9%  of the total heat produced by combustion. In short, a high efficiency furnace will convert up to 99.9% of every dollar spent on gas to usable heat for your home. 

Furnace Blower Fan

  The blower fan inside your furnace is essentially the lungs of your HVAC system. In the winter, the blower circulates the air across your heat exchangers to provide warm air. In the summer, it circulates the air across the cool indoor evaporator coil to dehumidify the air and cool your home. 

 The blower fan’s efficiency is directly related to how much money you save and how comfortable your home is year round. Older furnaces typically had about 2-3 speeds that the blower would operate but most modern furnaces use a variable speed blower motor that can operate at up to 100 incremental speeds based on the demand of your home. This versatility allows your HVAC system to create more efficient heating and cooling while also reducing uneven temperatures throughout your home. 

Communicating HVAC System

The ultimate comfort solutions are achieved by utilizing Lennox’s communicating HVAC equipment. Communicating equipment does exactly what the name suggests, it communicates. When the Lennox S40 thermostat is paired with a communicating furnace & A/C condenser, it spends every day trying to learn the needs of your home and understand how to provide comfort by using less energy. These systems use many environmental sensors built into the equipment that provide it with real-time data such as indoor/outdoor temperature, indoor/outdoor humidity levels, indoor/outdoor air quality, duct pressure and even weather patterns. 

  The ultra-smart thermostat will have full control over how fast to run the blower fan, how much gas to feed the furnace burners, how hard your air conditioner works in the summer, when to filter or ventilate the air due more often due to poor air quality and even when to adjust your homes humidity. This communicating technology has really changed the entire industry and continues to improve with software updates that will automatically be applied to your equipment as they come out.

We Are Here To Help

  Keep in mind that efficient heating and cooling relies on the ability to move clean air through a clean furnace or air conditioning system. The single most important and effective thing you can do to maintain your HVAC equipment is to change your air filters on time. Additionally, be sure to have your maintenance done annually to avoid costly repairs. If you notice any odd noises or lack in performance be sure to give us a call. We offer reliable furnace repair, air conditioning repair and all types of maintenance plans that will fit your budget in the Barrington IL Area.