Furnace Installation in Pekin, IL
A new furnace here will run from October through May every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Tazewell County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Eight months of heat, and nights that drop to 20°F
Pekin homes run the furnace from October through May. That's eight months, most of the year, with winter nights averaging 20°F. A new furnace here has to hold up to that stretch, not just get through a cold snap.
Most homes in the area heat with gas, and any new gas furnace has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE under the federal minimum set in 2015. That's the floor. The ten years of storm records for this area include 10 winter storms and 154 damaging wind events, the kind of weather that knocks out power and puts a furnace's ignition system to the test right when you need heat most.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 20°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 73%
- 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 Tazewell County compared with a gas furnace.
Estimates for a typical Tazewell 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.
Tazewell County does not license HVAC contractors on its own, and Illinois leaves that decision to local governments. Some cities and towns require a license to do this work within their limits, others do not, so whether a contractor is licensed depends on the address more than the trade.
For a furnace installation, the protection here is the permit and inspection process. Most cities and counties require a permit before the old furnace comes out and an inspection once the new one is in, and that inspection is what catches a bad gas connection or venting problem, since that is the dangerous part of this job. With most homes in Tazewell County heating with gas, that inspection is doing the job a license would do elsewhere.
Source: Illinois General Assembly
- What size furnace does my house need?
- That comes from a heat loss calculation on your actual house, not a rule of thumb based on square footage. A contractor measures your walls, windows, insulation and ceiling height and figures out how much heat your house loses on a cold night. With lows averaging 20°F here in the winter, getting this right matters more than in a milder climate. Too big and the furnace short cycles, wearing itself out faster. Too small and it runs constantly and still can't keep up when it's coldest.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- Age is the first thing to check. An older furnace works harder than it used to, and parts get harder to find. Watch for rooms that won't heat evenly, a furnace that cycles on and off more than it used to, or a jump in what you're paying to heat the house. If you're needing a repair every winter, or the last repair was a major one like a cracked heat exchanger, replacing it is usually the better move. With heat needed here from October through May, eight months of the year, a furnace on its way out doesn't get much of a break to recover.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- It depends on how long you plan to stay in the house and how much you're currently spending to heat it. Any non-weatherized gas furnace made since November 2015 already has to hit at least 80 percent AFUE, so the real choice is between that and a furnace built to do better. Since homes here need heat eight months a year, the furnace runs long enough that a gain in efficiency shows up on your gas bill every one of those months. A contractor can look at your current furnace's rating and your usage and tell you what the upgrade would actually mean for your house.