What is a Condensing Gas Furnace?

To understand the difference between a conventional gas furnace and a condensing gas furnace, first we must understand gas combustion.

One of the products of gas combustion is water vapor. If this vapor is allowed to condense and mix with the other combustion gases it would form an acid which would quickly destroy your furnace or chimney. That is why conventional gas furnaces use metal pipes for venting the very hot gases.

A condensing gas furnace is built to withstand these corrosive by-products.

When we condense water vapor to liquid water it gives us 970 BTU’s per pound ( 1 cubic foot of natural gas is 1000 BTU’s) This heat is used to heat your home rather than the air outside your home.

These furnaces are vented to the outside with plastic pipes that you can touch with the furnace operating, don’t try to touch the vent of a conventional furnace — you will get burned.

By utilizing most of the heat produced by the combustion process condensing gas furaces achieve efficiencies as high as 98%.

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