Furnace Installation in Chambersburg, PA
A new furnace here will run from October through May every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Franklin County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Eight months of heat, and winters that can cut the power
Chambersburg needs heat from October through May, eight months a year. Winter nights average 24°F, so a new furnace has to be sized for real cold, not just a few sharp nights.
Franklin County has seen 16 winter storms and 78 damaging wind events over the last ten years. Statewide, 15% of Pennsylvania households went at least 24 hours without power in 2024. With 51.9% of homes here heating with electricity, an outage can mean no heat at all, whatever the furnace. Any non-weatherized gas furnace installed now has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE. That is the federal minimum, not a special upgrade.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 24°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 80% AFUE
- the federal minimum any new unit must meet
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
Pennsylvania requires contractors to register with the state.
Registration means the business is on file with the Bureau of Consumer Protection. Nobody tested this contractor on furnace work to get that number, and the state doesn't track whether the job was done right afterward. Pennsylvania also doesn't let cities or towns add their own HVAC license on top, so this registration is the only state-level record that exists anywhere in Franklin County.
What checks the work itself is the permit. In most cities and counties, a furnace installation needs a permit from the local building office, and the finished job gets inspected before it's signed off. That inspection is where someone looks at the gas line, the venting, and the connections, the parts of the job that can hurt someone if they're wrong. The registration tells you the business is on record. The permit and inspection are what tell you the furnace was put in correctly.
Source: Pennsylvania General Assembly
- What size furnace does my house need?
- There is no single answer without a load calculation done for your house. A contractor works out the size using your square footage, your insulation, your window count and type, and your ceiling height, then checks it against a formula called a Manual J. Going bigger than what the calculation calls for does not mean more comfort. An oversized furnace cycles on and off too fast, which wears out parts sooner and leaves rooms uneven. An undersized one runs constantly and still can't keep up on the coldest nights, when lows here average 24°F.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- Age is the first thing to check. Most furnaces last 15 years, and if yours is past that, a repair now may just delay a bigger cost later. Watch for other signs too. Rooms that used to heat evenly no longer do, the furnace cycles more than it used to, or a technician finds the heat exchanger cracked, which is not something to repair. Since homes here need heat from October through May, a furnace already struggling in the fall is worth replacing before the coldest stretch of winter hits.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- It depends on what furnace you have now and how long you plan to stay in the house. Every non-weatherized gas furnace sold since November 2015 has to hit at least 80 percent AFUE, so if yours is newer than that, the jump to a high-efficiency model is smaller than it would be against an older unit. With heat needed here eight months out of the year, the difference in gas burned adds up over a full season more than it would somewhere with a short winter. A contractor can weigh your current furnace's rating against the options and price out what the job would look like for your house.