Your forced-air furnace is a complex system of parts that work together to keep you warm and comfortable throughout the long winter months. Understanding what these parts are and how they function as part of the system is something that every homeowner should know about so they can recognize potential problems when they occur.
Here are the different parts contained within your forced-air furnace system along with an explanation of how they work together to heat your home.
- The building thermostat detects the current temperature in your home and turns the furnace burner on when the temperature drops below the settings you have programmed.
- The gas or oil burner is the heat source within your forced-air furnace. It turns on and off based on what you have programmed into the thermostat. It will run until the desired temperature is reached or until the fan limit is reached and the unit becomes too hot.
- The heat exchanger is a metal box where the hot combustion gases generated by the burner circulate and heat the metal up. These gases are then vented safely outside through a flue connected to the heat exchanger.
- The furnace blower draws cool air from the return vents throughout your home and blows this cool air across the heat exchanger before sending it back through the warm air ducts.
- The air ducts are the system of pipes that help carry cold air from the home toward the furnace and warm air from the furnace back through the home keeping you nice and cozy.
- A combination fan and limit control is the final component of the system. It serves to turn on and shut off your furnace at the temperatures you’ve set. It also serves as a safety control that will shut itself off if the temperature inside the furnace becomes unsafe.
For additional information or to schedule a tune-up for your forced-air furnace, contact the professional technicians at Roth Heating & Cooling. For 35 years, we’ve proudly served the residents in and around the Portland area with their home heating needs and we want to make you our next satisfied customer.
