Furnace Installation in Murrysville, PA
A new furnace here will run from October through May every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Westmoreland County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Eight months of heat, and winter nights near 23°F
Murrysville homes run the furnace October through May. That's eight months of the year, and the nights in the middle of that stretch average 23°F. A furnace here doesn't get much of a break before the next cold spell asks something of it again.
Most of Westmoreland County heats with gas, and any new gas furnace built today has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE by federal law. The wind and ice here are a separate problem. The area has recorded 441 damaging wind events and 29 winter storms over the past ten years, and statewide, 15 percent of households went at least 24 hours without power in 2024. A new furnace here needs to be sized and installed for nights that are cold, and sometimes without power to help.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 23°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 65%
- 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 $130 a year to run in Westmoreland County compared with a gas furnace.
Estimates for a typical Westmoreland County home, from EIA household energy data, Pennsylvania fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
Pennsylvania requires contractors to register with the state.
That registration puts the business on file with the state and gives Pennsylvania a record of who is operating, but nobody tests the contractor's work before they're handed that number. No trade exam stands behind it. Pennsylvania also keeps cities and towns from layering their own HVAC license on top, so this registration is the only state-level record that exists anywhere in Pennsylvania.
For a furnace installation, the checkpoint that actually looks at the work is the local building office. Most cities and counties require a permit for a furnace swap and send an inspector out when it's done, and a gas furnace is exactly the kind of job that inspection is for, since a bad gas connection is the part that can hurt someone. With 65.3% of homes in Westmoreland County heating with gas, that inspection is the step doing the real work of catching problems here.
Source: Pennsylvania General Assembly
- What size furnace does my house need?
- There's no single number that fits every house here. Sizing comes from a load calculation that looks at your square footage, insulation, window count, and ceiling height, then works out how much heat you lose on a cold night. A furnace that's too big cycles on and off fast and never runs long enough to heat evenly. One that's too small runs constantly and still can't keep up when it drops to 23°F. A contractor will run the calculation on your actual house before recommending a size.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- Watch for rising repair calls, uneven heat between rooms, and a furnace that's getting old. Homes here need heat from October through May, eight months of the year, so a furnace on its way out gets tested hard and often. If yours is shutting off on its own, cycling more than it used to, or a technician has told you the heat exchanger is cracked, that's a repair not worth making. Age combined with rising repair frequency is usually the clearer signal than any single breakdown.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- It depends on how long you plan to stay in the house and what your current furnace is costing you to run. Any new non-weatherized gas furnace sold today has to hit at least 80 percent AFUE by law, so the real choice is between that baseline and a high-efficiency model rated higher. With winter lows here averaging 23°F and heat needed eight months of the year, a furnace that runs more efficiently is working through a long season, not a short one. A contractor can look at your current unit's efficiency and your usage to tell you whether the difference pencils out for your house.