Furnace Installation in Faribault, MN
A new furnace here will run from September through May every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Rice County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Nine months of heat, starting at 10 degrees
Faribault needs a furnace from September through May. That is nine months of the year, and winter nights average 10°F. Whatever gets installed has to carry the house through that whole stretch, not just the coldest weeks.
Most homes here heat with gas, and any non-weatherized gas furnace built after November 2015 has to hit at least 80 percent AFUE. That is the federal floor, not a special feature. Rice County also sees its share of winter storms and wind events strong enough to knock out power, so a furnace that starts back up on its own once the power returns is worth asking about when you install one.
- 9 months
- September through May, your furnace is on duty
- 10°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 65%
- 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 Rice County compared with a gas furnace.
Estimates for a typical Rice County home, from EIA household energy data, Minnesota fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
Minnesota has no state license for HVAC contractors.
There is no state record to check on a furnace installer in Minnesota. No license, no registration, nothing filed with the state that says this contractor tested or qualified for anything. Whatever protection exists here comes from somewhere other than a state license.
In most cities and counties, a new furnace needs a permit from the local building office, and the work gets inspected once it is done. That permit and inspection are what stand in place of a license here. In Rice County, where 65.2% of homes heat with gas, most furnace jobs are gas furnace jobs, and the inspection is the check on that work.
Source: Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes
- What size furnace does my house need?
- It depends on your square footage, your insulation, your windows, and how your house is built, so there's no single number that fits every home. A contractor works this out with a load calculation, not a chart based on square feet alone. Since winter nights here average 10°F, getting this right matters more than it would somewhere milder. Too big and the furnace short cycles. Too small and it runs constantly without keeping up on the coldest nights.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- Watch for uneven heat between rooms, a furnace that runs longer to hit the same temperature, or repairs that keep coming back. Age matters too. Furnaces installed after November 2015 are built to hit at least 80 percent AFUE, so if yours is older than that and struggling, it's likely running well below what a new one would give you. Homes here need heat from September through May, so a furnace that's failing has almost no season off to make it worth patching through.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- It depends on how long you plan to stay in the house and how much you run the furnace, and a contractor can walk through those numbers for your situation. What's true everywhere is that a high-efficiency furnace pulls more heat out of the same fuel before venting the rest outside, so less of what you pay for goes up the flue. In a place where homes need heat nine months a year, that furnace is working almost constantly, so the gap between a standard unit and a high-efficiency one shows up a lot more than it would somewhere with a short winter.