Roger: Twenty or 30 year ago, you could ignore your furnace. You didn’t have to maintain it. It would pretty much take care of itself because the efficiencies of those furnaces were so low that the heat wasn’t being trapped inside them for very long. It was just going in and out. They were pretty indestructible. New furnaces, with the technology and efficiency levels, they are very sensitive and they need a lot more attention than the old furnaces did.

Meaghan: I’ve mentioned that we’ve got an old boiler in our basement. That thing doesn’t require anything. I mean we turn on and off, then pull out the pilot light in the spring and we re-light it in October and that’s about it.

Roger: Great example. Yes.

Meaghan: That’s all. My house was built in 1926 and it’s the original equipment in the basement. It’s gone from coal to oil now to gas.

Carla: Wow.

Meaghan: It’s the old octopus thing and it’s just scary to look at.

Carla: Oh my gosh! I bet it is.

Roger: Yes but if you put a new one in tomorrow and you give it the same amount of attention you gave your old one, 10 years from now you’re going to have that conversation with the contractor about, “Wow, this thing needs to be changed.” That’s kind of how things evolved in the heating world. They don’t have that grace any longer as far as being able to ignore stuff.

Meaghan: Yes and I imagine they have a lot to do with the technology that is now in the system. You throw in a computer in a box that’s hot, that’s not a good combination. Electronics and heat don’t go together. Keeping it running right, keeping it cool–that’s the key.

Meaghan: We talked a little bit about while the furnace being just one little bitty piece of the overall picture, Carla mentioned ducts and I want to dig into the role that ducts play but I want a better understanding of what a duct is.

Roger: A duct, like I talked about, I tell people think about it like your body. It’s the veins in your body that carries the blood to the different organs and to your skin. It’s the life of the heating system. The furnace is your heart and so if that furnace can make all the heat it wants but if the duct system isn’t right or correct or sized properly, it nullifies what the furnace can do because it can’t get the air to the hole.

So having a properly destined duct system, finding deficiencies in duct systems and repairing them on the front end–those are big things to making the furnace work properly. In fact, manufacturers now [Static 1:24:07-1:24:09] policies to where if you don’t have a duct pressure just like with people when you go to the doctor, they put the blood pressure cuff on you and they check your blood pressure. It’s heating contractors when I start my heating system, I have to check its blood pressure or it’s called static pressure but I have to check the pressure or air in that duct system. If it’s higher than the manufacturer, I can’t just put it on blood pressure medication like my doctor did me. I have to find out why and fix it. If I don’t fix it, the manufacturer can make that warranty null and void. They don’t have to stand behind it because that furnace is not working within their manufacturer’s specifications.

Going back to the different styles of heating contractors, a retrofit contractor sees that, understands that, a new construction contractor doesn’t see it because he doesn’t deal with it. He doesn’t know those things about the air and system have changed because he’s always putting new in. That’s the biggest deal–if that duct system is moving the heat from the box to the hole and how it’s designed is going to determine how much of that heat you get and how efficiently it gets it there.