Electric furnaces, heat pumps
Electric Furnaces
In many homes the heating system is electrically powered. One such
system is the electric furnace, which functions like a gas or oil
furnace but does not use combustion to produce heat. Rather it uses
electrical resistance heating coils to provide warmth to the air that
blow throughout the house. Because there is no combustion, there are no
concerns about carbon monoxide or water vapor in exhaust gases. There
is no exhaust since nothing is burning. The electric furnace is a
dependable and long-lived heating system and should perform
satisfactorily for many years. However, it is an expensive system to
operate. The cost for electrical power far exceeds the cost of gas or
oil in most of the country, and for this reason, electric furnaces are
rarely installed in new construction.
Heat Pumps
In electrically powered systems, the successor to the electric furnace
has been the heat pump. Like an electric furnace, a heat pump does not
use combustion to produce warm air. It does not burn any fossil fuel.
Rather, it uses principles of thermodynamics to absorb heat from one
source (typically, the outside
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