Furnace Installation in Sioux Falls, SD
A new furnace here will run from September through May every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Minnehaha County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
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Nine months of heat, ten degree nights
A furnace in Minnehaha County works from September through May. That is nine months a year, with winter lows averaging 10°F. When it starts, it has to hold a house against real cold, not just take the edge off, and it does that most nights for the better part of the year.
The county has logged 36 winter storms and 144 damaging wind events over the past ten years. A new furnace goes in facing that kind of weather. If it burns gas and was built after November 2015, federal rules require it to run at 80 percent AFUE or higher, so the unit installed today is already built for the load this climate puts on it.
- 9 months
- September through May, your furnace is on duty
- 10°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 64%
- 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 $80 a year to run in Minnehaha County compared with a gas furnace.
Estimates for a typical Minnehaha 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.
In Minnehaha County, whether a contractor needs a local license depends on the city. Sioux Falls and other towns in the county set their own rules for who can do this work, so there is no single state record to check. Whatever the local rule is, it applies to the business doing your install, not to the state as a whole.
For a furnace install here, the protection that reaches most jobs is the permit. In most cities and counties, replacing a furnace calls for a permit from the local building office, and an inspection once the work is done, checking that the unit is installed correctly and vented the way it should be. That inspection matters most on the gas connection, since a bad one is the dangerous part of this job. In Minnehaha County, 64.2% of homes heat with gas, so that connection is part of most furnace installs done here.
Source: South Dakota Legislature
- What size furnace does my house need?
- It depends on your house, not on the furnace you have now. A contractor sizes a furnace with a load calculation that accounts for your square footage, insulation, windows, and ceiling height. Going bigger than what the calculation calls for does not mean more comfort. It means the furnace short cycles, wears out faster, and leaves some rooms colder than others. With winter lows here averaging 10°F, getting the size right matters more than it would somewhere milder.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- Watch for rising repair bills, uneven heat between rooms, and a furnace that runs longer to hold the same temperature. Age matters too, and homes here run their furnace nine months out of the year, September through May, which adds wear faster than a shorter season would. If yours is old and starting to need repairs each winter, replacing it before it fails on a 10°F night is worth planning for. A furnace installed after November 2015 has to meet 80 percent AFUE at minimum, so anything older than that is working with less efficiency to begin with.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- A high-efficiency furnace burns less gas to make the same heat, and with 64.2 percent of homes in Minnehaha County heating with gas, that difference shows up over nine months of heating a year. The standard minimum is 80 percent AFUE. High-efficiency models are rated higher than that. Whether the higher upfront cost makes sense for your house depends on your current furnace and how long you plan to stay in the home, and a contractor can price that out for your specific house.