How to Pick the Best Furnace Brand
There are a few main things that homeowners will want to take into consideration when deciding which replacement furnace brand is best for them. It depends what you value the most in a new heating unit. The major factors for most homeowner will be the cost of the new furnace, lifespan, warranties, energy efficiency (AFUE ratings), fuel source used, and a few other major options we will discuss below.
1. Quality Furnace Brands: As with most home heating units, there are often different tiers of furnace standards that coincide with the quality each brand holds. Most brands will offer different tiers of heating units that cater to a homeowner’s budget that also correlate to your home’s heating needs. If you are needing to replace your entire HVAC system with both a new furnace as well as a new AC unit, check out our list of the best air conditioning units.
2. Lifetime Value: Installing a new furnace and selecting the best option for your home is important. The initial cost is often easier to estimate, but you will also need to consider the added costs of lifetime maintenance for a home furnace. A quality brand will need less repairs overtime.
3. High AFUE Ratings: Efficiency of furnace brands are measured by a fuel converted to heat ratio called Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency (AFUE.) A good furnace brand should offer an 80% to 99% AFUE rating. It might not seem like a worthwhile investment to spend an extra $200 or even $500 for a higher efficiency furnace in your home, but with efficiency improvements at such an affordable rate, it’s often worth it to step up to a better name brand with a more efficient product.
4. Good Warranties: Look closely at the length of the warranties each brand offers for different parts. Warranties covering 10 years of operation are common with quality products. Not only do top companies like Trane or Carrier offer 10-year warranties on most defected or failed furnace parts, but they also cover additional expenses like the labor costs incurred to fix the systems.
Average Furnace Installation Costs
The average furnace installation cost will vary depending on the factors discussed throughout this article. However, most brands will offer different prices and tiers on their replacement furnaces. If you were wanting a more affordable gas furnace you may want to look into installing a new Goodman brand furnace in your home, which on average would cost around $1,850 to install. If you were looking for a higher quality gas furnace that may have more to offer, you would research a Carrier gas furnace which would costs around $3,075 for installation costs. Here is a list of some of the top brands and their associated installation costs:
| Gas Furnace Brands | Gas Furnace Prices | Furnace Installation Costs |
|---|---|---|
| Amana | $895 | $2,285 |
| American Standard | $1,378 | $3,800 |
| Bryant | $975 | $2,520 |
| Carrier | $1,260 | $3,075 |
| Coleman | $730 | $2,210 |
| Goodman | $685 | $1,850 |
| Heil | $820 | $2,420 |
| Lennox | $1,450 | $3,885 |
| Nordyne | $932 | $2,400 |
| Payne | $645 | $1,900 |
| Rheem | $1,180 | $2,890 |
| Ruud | $1,189 | $3,182 |
| Trane | $1,254 | $3,186 |
| York | $790 | $2,100 |
Furnace Brand Reviews:
The best furnace home heaters will provide more reliable performance over time and help you save on energy bills while keeping your house warm. Here’s a quick roundup of some of the best furnace brands on the market today:
1. American Standard Furnaces
American Standard furnaces units are one of the most reliable brands in the business. The company gets far fewer repair calls for its heating units than most brands in the HVAC industry. You can feel comfortable paying more for an American Standard furnace because the quality is top notch and very reputable in the HVAC industry.
American Standard Furnace Prices
- The price for a replacement American Standard gas furnace can range from $2,494 to $4,375 in total installation costs. Your exact costs will largely depend on the size furnace system needed for your home and the AFUE percentage of the replacement gas furnace. If you wanted to install a mid tier unit such as the American Standard Silver 80H gas furnace with an 80% AFUE rating you could expect to pay $2,524 in installation costs. To get exact local costs, connect with one of our natural gas furnace installers today.
2. Amana Furnace Units
Amana HVAC furnaces are actually owned by another best brand on this list, Goodman Global, any product from either brand are always known for great quality and very reliable. Heat pumps, air conditioners, and gas furnaces are all available HVAC units from this brand.
3. Bryant Furnaces
Bryant brand builds impressive central gas furnaces that homeowners love. Their central gas furnaces are capable of very high AFUE ratings of up to 90% or more. Bryant brand furnaces are Energy Star certified and the average price of a new furnace averages around $2400, depending on unit model needed for your home heating needs.
4. Carrier Furnaces
Willis Carrier, the founder of Carrier furnaces, is credited with inventing the modern-day air conditioner. That long-standing experience is part of why Carrier air conditioners and furnaces are of such high quality. Consumer Reports rates Carrier brand as one of the top furnace brands, and most HVAC technicians stand behind Carrier confidently because of the long-lasting products and solid furnace warranties available.
5. Daikin Furnaces
Daikin is a wonderful heating and cooling company that has been in business since the 1930s and offers most standard heating and cooling products. Daikin stands out for its customer service most. The company offers to fix any HVAC unit issues that affect a customer’s comfort within the first year of the new furnace installation.
6. Goodman Brand Furnaces
Goodman is another of the top furnace brands on this list that isn’t quite as revered as Trane or Carrier. However, the Goodman brand’s products have a solid build quality, along with offering great warranty programs you can count on. Goodman furnaces are a real value overall for those who have a budget to consider for your HVAC system.
Goodman Furnace Prices
Goodman Furnace Prices - The price for a Goodman gas furnace can range from $1,100 to $3,650 in total installation costs. Your exact costs will largely depend on the size furnace system needed for your home and the AFUE rating chosen. To install a mid tier unit such as the Goodman GMVC96 Gas Furnace you could expect to pay $2,900 in installation costs. See our Goodman gas furnace cost chart below:
| Furnace Model | AFUE % | Unit Only | Installation Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goodman GMVM97 | 98% | $2,275 | $3,250 |
| Goodman GMVC96 | 96% | $2,100 | $2,875 |
| Goodman GMSS96 | 92% | $2,050 | $2,800 |
| Goodman GMVC8 | 80% | $1,122 | $2,182 |
| Goodman GCVC8 | 80% | $1,115 | $2,055 |
7. Lennox Furnaces
Lennox International is one of the longest running American furnace companies. They offer top-end central air units and whole-home furnaces. Lennox offers more quiet options equipped with variable blower motors. Lennox is a great option for any of your HVAC installation needs, especially a new furnace. Lennox furnaces are split into three different levels. There is the Merit, the Elite and the Dave Lennox Signature Collection. Each is highly efficient, but the Dave Lennox Signature offers a 98.7 percent efficiency with its highest model.
8. Rheem Furnaces
Rheem was founded in 1930, and although it’s best-known for producing boilers and hot water heating equipment, it also offers top-quality heating and cooling units today. Rheem is the owner of the Ruud brand and manufactures products under that well-known name, too. All Rheem and Ruud products come with comprehensive furnace warranties.
9. Ruud Furnace Units
Ruud central furnaces come from a reliable brand that offers a full lineup of heating and cooling products. There are countless customer reviews that credit Ruud furnaces and heating units as being long-lasting and of a high standard. Ruud also has available furnace parts throughout the United States allowing them to have a very efficient turn around time on ordering replacement HVAC parts and being able to offer a quality warranty.
10. Trane Furnaces
As a branch of Ingersoll Rand and the successor to American Standard, Trane is one of the industry’s top heating and cooling specialists. The company has been around since the late 1800s, but it has focused on heating solutions and furnaces since 1916. Trane offers a variety of products for heating, cooling, and humidifying a space.
Trane Gas Furnace Prices
- The price for a new Trane gas furnace can cost from $1,800 to $6,000 in total to install. See a list of Trane gas furnace costs by model below:
| Trane Gas Furnaces | Installation Costs |
|---|---|
| Trane XR80 | $1,800 - $3,000 |
| Trane XT80 | $2,000 - $3,200 |
| Trane XL80 | $2,000 - $3,600 |
| Trane XV80 | $2,500 - $4,000 |
| Trane XC80 | $2,500 - $4,500 |
| Trane S9X2 | $3,200 - $5,200 |
| Trane S9V2 | $3,500 - $6,000 |
York Furnaces
York is a prominent heating and cooling company. It’s one of the largest air conditioning and heating manufacturers and is known for creating compact residential furnace heating units. York offers packaged heating and cooling units that contain all the necessary components in one compact cabin to save space in smaller homes needing heating.
What Size Furnace Do I Need?
When it comes to figuring out the best size furnace for your home, you can easily decide the best size heating unit by looking at your home’s square footage as seen in the char below. A BTU when talking about furnaces is the measurement of heat output that your furnace is capable of producing for your home based on square footage of your home. For example, a 2,000 square foot would need a gas furnace with a 70,000 BTU heating output. See our BTU and size chart below along with the correlating AC unit size you would need for your home here:
| Home Size | Furnace BTU | Central AC Unit Size |
|---|---|---|
| 1,200 sq. ft | 50,000 BTU | 1.5 to 2 tons |
| 1,200 to 1,500 sq. ft | 55,000 BTU | 2 tons |
| 1,500 to 1,800 sq. ft | 60,000 BTU | 2.5 tons |
| 1,800 to 2,500 sq. ft | 70,000 BTU | 2.5 to 3 tons |
| 2,500 to 3,500 sq. ft | 90,000 to 100,000 BTU | 3.5 to 4 tons |
Quality Control on Furnaces
Even two furnaces made from the same materials might not function the same, and that’s where quality control comes into play. Leading companies, such as Trane, emphasize using high-quality materials and proper assembly. In fact, Trane’s SEET (Systems Extreme Environmental Test) Laboratory in Texas conducts rigorous product inspections. Each unit is subjected to warm and cold testing, salt spray, and a variety of other difficult tests designed to add five years of wear to a unit in just one week. With such comprehensive testing, equipment from Trane—or other similar manufacturers—is reliable.
HVAC Enhanced Engineering
Careful engineering practices and regular development help top brands offer the highest efficiency products and the coolest new features for your home heating needs. Amana, Trane, and other leading companies have their own engineering department that test current products and design components to improve heating products and enhance reliability, efficiency, performance, and everything else that makes a best brand.
Furnace Installers Near You
Many furnace brands, such as Trane or Mitsubishi, offer some sort of authentication and credential process for furnace installation technicians. When professionals go through the proper steps to gain these credentials, you know they can be relied upon to do a good job. It’s a simple way to protect your home and ensure that you’re getting the best contractors available. Compare local quotes below from contractors who work with the best furnace brands available:
