American Gas - April 2012 - (Page 20)

T E C H N O l O g y u p D AT E S & A D v A N C E S TEch Talk Equipped to Save Energy Home owners might be surprised by some of the technological advancements available in today’s natural gas furnaces, boilers, water heaters and space heaters. oday’s residential natural gas heating equipment—furnaces, boilers, water heaters, space heaters—is far more technologically advanced than you might realize. Since most of us don’t have to replace this equipment more often than once a decade or even 15 years, we might not realize everything today’s equipment can offer a home owner. Certainly, numerous technological advances make today’s equipment far different from what was available even a few decades ago. One technological advance of particular significance is the implementation of designs incorporating condensing technology across the spectrum of gas-fired heating equipment. This technology extracts so much heat from the gas combustion process that the water that normally is suspended in the flue gases as vapor actually becomes liquid (i.e., condenses). As a result, condensing technology provides operating efficiencies of 90 percent and higher. In contrast, residential gas equipment that does not employ condensing designs usually has operating efficiencies in the range of 75 percent to 83 percent. Condensing technology has been available for many years and was first implemented on residential gas furnaces in the mid-1980s. Today, residential gas furnaces are commonplace. What is new is that a home owner now has the opportunity to purchase condensing models of gas furnaces, gas boilers, gas water heaters (storage or tankless type) and space T heaters. This technology has now evolved from a unique “high-tech” design to a common gas equipment design. Any gas space or water heating product that a home owner might want is now available with condensing technology that operates at the highest efficiency that is possible on a practical basis. With this general backdrop, let’s look at some specific features found on today’s models of residential gas equipment. Furnaces The latest advances in furnace design have addressed reduced electricity consumption and improved system performance. Many furnace models now use an electronically commutated motor (ECM) to drive the blower that moves the home’s air through the furnace and the heating ducts. Such motors use less electricity than standard motors, thus reducing the electrical consumption of the furnace and lowering the consumer’s overall energy bill for operating the furnace. Because most residential systems use the furnace blower also to distribute air cooled by the home’s air conditioner, the ECM provides a secondary benefit of lowering the home owner’s cooling bill. Many models also are designed to burn gas both at the full input rate and at one or more reduced rates. This feature is referred to as twostage firing or multi-stage firing, depending on how many different input rates the furnace can operate. This feature allows the furnace to operate at a lower firing rate when the heating load of the house is small. During the days leading up to winter or the days when winter is nearly over, the weather is generally milder; thus, the heating needs of the house are less than on those coldest days in the middle of winter. On those milder days, the furnace will operate at the lower inputs and improve the overall efficiency of the heating FRANK A. STANONIK is chief technical adviser and FRANCIS DIETZ is vice president, public affairs for the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute. 20 AmericAn GAs APRIL 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Gas - April 2012

American Gas - April 2012
Contents
President’s Message
In the News
Safety First
Ask AGA
Tech Talk
Engaging Consumers
Squeezing Every Btu
Places to Be
Noteworthies
Jobline
Marketplace
Advertisers’ Index
Facts on Gas

American Gas - April 2012