Furnace Installation in Champaign, IL
A new furnace here will run from October through May every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Champaign County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Eight months of heating in Champaign County
Furnaces here run from October through May. That's eight months of the year, and on winter nights the temperature averages 21°F. A furnace going in now needs to hold up to that stretch, not just get through a cold snap.
54.2 percent of homes here heat with gas, and any non-weatherized gas furnace built after November 2015 has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE by federal rule. Power matters too. 16 percent of Illinois households went at least 24 hours without power in 2024, and the last ten years brought 11 winter storms and 223 damaging wind events through the area.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 21°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 54%
- 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 $120 a year to run in Champaign County compared with a gas furnace.
Estimates for a typical Champaign County home, from EIA household energy data, Illinois fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
In Illinois, HVAC licensing for homes is left to the cities and towns.
Illinois leaves this to the local level, so whether a contractor needs a license depends on whether Champaign County or the city inside it sets that rule. There is no state exam or state record to check either way. Some municipalities require a license to do HVAC work inside their limits, others don't, and a business licensed to work in one town may not meet the rule in the next one over.
For a furnace install, the protection that reliably applies here is the permit and inspection process, since most cities and counties require a permit for a furnace replacement and an inspection once the work is done. That inspection is what catches a bad gas connection or an unsafe vent, which is the part of this job that can hurt someone if it's done wrong. More than half the homes in Champaign County heat with gas, so that check matters to a lot of the houses around this one.
Source: Illinois General Assembly
- What size furnace does my house need?
- It depends on your square footage, how well the house is insulated, your ceiling height, and how many windows you have, so there is no single number that fits every home. A furnace that is too big will short cycle, heating the house too fast and shutting off before it runs long enough to warm evenly. One that is too small will run constantly and still struggle to keep up on the coldest nights, and here that means nights averaging 21°F through the winter. A contractor will need to do a load calculation on your actual house to get this right.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- Age is the first thing to look at, along with how often you are calling for a repair. If you are needing a repair call more than once a season, or the furnace is old enough that parts are getting harder to find, a repair bill is a signal to start pricing a replacement instead. Watch for rooms that heat unevenly, a furnace that cycles on and off more than it used to, or a jump in your gas bill with no other explanation. Homes here need heat from October through May, so a furnace on its way out has a long stretch of the year to fail.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- It depends on how much heat your house uses and how long you plan to stay in it. Any non-weatherized gas furnace made after November 2015 already has to reach 80 percent AFUE, so that is the floor, not the ceiling. A high-efficiency model turns more of the gas you pay for into heat instead of losing it out the vent. Heat is needed here from October through May, so that difference shows up on eight months of gas bills every year. A contractor can walk through the actual models and what each one would mean for your house.