Furnace Installation in Manchester, NH
A new furnace here will run from October through May every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Hillsborough County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Eight months of heat, and winter nights near 16°F
Manchester needs a furnace from October through May. That is eight months of the year the system has to work, and on winter nights that average 16°F, it runs long and often to keep up.
Power is part of the picture too. Last year, 22 percent of New Hampshire households lost power for 24 hours or more, and the ten years before that brought 72 winter storms and 147 damaging wind events to the area. A new furnace should be sized for what the house needs on the coldest nights, not just the mild ones. If you're installing gas, federal rules set the floor. Any non-weatherized gas furnace made since November 2015 has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 16°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 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 Hillsborough County compared with a gas furnace.
Estimates for a typical Hillsborough County home, from EIA household energy data, New Hampshire fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
New Hampshire has no state license for HVAC contractors.
New Hampshire does not put a license or a registration behind any HVAC contractor's name. There is no state test to pass and no state record to check. Whatever confidence you have in the person doing this job comes from somewhere other than a state license, because in this state that credential does not exist.
For a furnace install, the backstop is the local building office. In most cities and towns, swapping in a new furnace needs a permit and an inspection once the work is done, and that inspection is where a bad gas connection gets caught. Gas is the part of this job with no margin for error, and here it is the local inspector, not a state license, who checks it. In Hillsborough County, 38.4% of homes heat with gas.
Source: New Hampshire General Court
- What size furnace does my house need?
- It depends on your square footage, your insulation, your windows, and how the house is laid out, so there is no single number that fits every home. A contractor works this out with a load calculation, not a chart based on square footage alone. Getting the size right matters here, where winter nights average 16°F from December through February. Too small and it runs constantly without keeping up. Too large and it short cycles, which wears out parts faster and leaves rooms uneven.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- Watch for repairs that keep coming back, rooms that stay cold no matter what you do, and a heating bill that climbs while the furnace runs more. Homes here need heat from October through May, eight months of the year, so a struggling furnace gets tested a lot before the season is over. If yours is older and starting to need parts, replacing it before it fails on a cold night is worth thinking about, especially with winter lows around 16°F. Age alone is not the whole story, but a furnace nearing the end of its expected life combined with rising repair calls usually means it is time.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- It depends on how long you plan to stay in the house and how much you spend heating it now. Any non-weatherized gas furnace manufactured since November 2015 has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE, so even a standard replacement is more efficient than an older unit. A high-efficiency model pulls more heat out of the same amount of gas, which matters here since the heating season runs eight months a year, October through May. A contractor can walk through the options for your house and price out what fits.