How to Pick the Best Furnace Brand
When choosing the best furnace brand for your home heating needs, all top brands should be able to offer the following things:
1. Quality Furnace Heating Systems: 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.
2. Furnace Lifetime & Maintenance: 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. Energy Efficiency of a Furnace: 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. Impressive Furnace 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.
Gas Furnace Costs by Brand
| Best Gas Furnace Brands | Average Furnace Cost | Average Total Installation Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Average Price: | $1,226 | $3,115 |
| American Standard | $1,250 | $3,820 |
| Amana | $925 | $2,285 |
| Bryant | $985 | $2,770 |
| Carrier | $1,100 | $2,995 |
| Daikin | $2,600 | $4,885 |
| Goodman | $755 | $1,950 |
| Lennox | $1,425 | $3,790 |
| Rheem | $1,250 | $2,905 |
| Ruud | $1,100 | $3,200 |
| Trane | $1,265 | $3,460 |
| York | $830 | $2,200 |
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 is one of the most reliable furnace 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.
2. Amana Furnaces
Amana HVAC system 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.
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.
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 Furnaces
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.
Other Top Options: 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.
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.
Finding a Furnace Installer by Brand
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:
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