When it was time to replace our furnace, my husband and I had very different opinions on what we should install.
I wanted an electric furnace while he wanted a gas furnace.
We’d had an eclectic furnace in every house we’d owned and there were never any issues with maintaining them. Electric furnaces were cheaper than gas furnaces and they were low risk. Carbon monoxide poisoning was very real and it scared me to think that it could negatively impact our home. I didn’t see a reason to switch over to a gas furnace if we didn’t have to. My husband on the other hand thought we could benefit from a gas furnace. Despite the average lifespan being shorter, a gas furnace would run no matter what kind of weather we experienced. If there was a power outage, our home would still be heated because the furnace wouldn’t require electricity. This did sound ideal, but I still wasn’t a fan of introducing gas to our home. I promised my husband that I’d do my research though, so I contacted an HVAC professional and asked to speak with him about gas versus an electric furnace. He told me a lot of similar information that I already knew, but he assured me that gas furnaces were safe if serviced by an HVAC professional regularly. He also said that we could install carbon monoxide detectors that would alert us of any traces of the gas. The HVAC professional didn’t sound worried, so I felt like I didn’t have any reason to worry either.