Furnace Installation in North Sioux City, SD
A new furnace here will run from October through May every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Union County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Eight months of heat in North Sioux City
Furnaces here run from October through May, eight months of the year. Winter nights average 13°F, so a furnace is not just taking the edge off the cold, it is holding a house warm against real cold, night after night. About half the homes in the area heat with gas, and that furnace has to be ready for the whole stretch, not just the coldest week.
The area has also logged 31 winter storms and 63 damaging wind events over the past ten years. A furnace installed here needs to keep running through nights like that. Any new gas furnace installed today has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE, the federal minimum for non-weatherized models.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 13°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 51%
- 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 $70 a year to run in Union County compared with a gas furnace.
Estimates for a typical Union County home, from EIA household energy data, South Dakota fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
In South Dakota, HVAC licensing for homes is left to the cities and towns.
South Dakota has no state license for HVAC contractors. Whether one is required here depends on the city or town, since that is who sets the rule, and nothing at the state level tracks or tests contractors doing this work.
A furnace installation still needs a permit from the local building office in most cities and counties, and an inspection once the work is done. Gas connections are the part of this job that matters most if something is done wrong, and it is that local inspection, not a state license, standing behind the work here. Just over half the homes in Union County heat with gas, so this is the kind of installation that inspection exists for.
Source: South Dakota Legislature
- What size furnace does my house need?
- It depends on the size of your house, how well it's insulated, your window count, and your ceiling height, so there's no single number that fits every home. A contractor sizes it with a load calculation that looks at all of that together. Going by square footage alone, or matching whatever size is already in there, often gets it wrong in one direction or the other. With winter lows here averaging 13°F, getting the size right matters more than it would somewhere milder. Too small and it runs constantly without keeping up. Too big and it short-cycles, which wears out parts faster and leaves rooms uneven.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- Age is one thing to check, along with how the furnace has been running. A cracked heat exchanger is a safety issue and not something to patch. Rising gas bills without a clear reason, rooms that used to heat evenly and now don't, and needing a repair every winter are all signs it's closer to the end than the start. Homes here need heat eight months of the year, October through May, so a furnace that's struggling gets tested hard and often. If a repair is priced close to what a new unit would run, that's usually the point to replace instead.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- It depends on how many months a year your furnace runs and what your current one is rated. Since November 2015, every new non-weatherized gas furnace sold has had to reach at least 80 percent AFUE, so even a standard replacement today is more efficient than an older unit. A high-efficiency furnace goes beyond that minimum, which means less heat lost out the vent for every hour it runs. Homes here need heat eight months of the year, October through May, with winter nights averaging 13°F, so a furnace here logs more hours than one in a milder climate, and the gap between an 80 percent unit and a higher-rated one adds up over that many months. A contractor can walk through the options and price them for your house.