RCM
Furnaces


Made
In USA For Over 60 Years
We visited the Allied Air Enterprises
Manufacturing Facility in Orangeburg, SC. While other
companies are moving out of the United States, Armstrong
Air (A Lennox Company) consolidated all of their operations
to one place and stayed in the United States. All the
administrative, technical support, engineering, manufacturing
and warehousing is done in one place. Armstrong uses
state of the art equipment and processes to assemble
their furnaces and air conditioners. I personally watched
the entire manufacturing process from beginning to end
and will stand by all of the Armstrong products indefinitely.
Each Armstrong furnace is test run extensively and proven
before it is ever crated and shipped to our distributors
throughout Chicagoland. Armstrong has the best quality
control and consistency of all the manufacturers because
each furnace is run through complete test cycles.
We also maintain
and service every brand.
*
95v Enhanced Furnace *95% Efficiency Furnace
with Variable-Speed Blower, 2-Stage Gas Valve and Stainless
Steel Heat Exchanger *Great for correcting uneven temperatures*
*
93II Advantage Furnace *93% Efficiency Furnace
with 2-Stage Gas Valve and Stainless Steel Heat Exchanger
*
93 Advantage Furnace *93% Efficiency Furnace
with Single-Stage Gas Valve and Stainless Steel Heat
Exchanger
*
80v Enhanced Furnace *80% Efficiency Furnace
with Variable-Speed Blower, 2-Stage Gas Valve and Aluminized
Heat Exchanger
*
80II Advantage Furnace *80% Efficiency Furnace
with 2-Stage Gas Valve and Aluminized Heat Exchanger
*
80 Advantage Furnace *80% Efficiency Furnace
with Single-Stage Gas Valve and Aluminized Heat Exchanger
*
80 Tech Furnace *80% Efficiency Furnace with
Single-Stage Gas Valve and Aluminized Heat Exchanger
Furnaces and Efficiency (Your Gas
Bill)
Most older
furnaces are called natural draft because they depend
on heat to cause a draft up the chimney. These units
also have pilot lights and were considered to be around
80% efficient when new. The heat exchangers in these
units lose their heat transfer capabilities and efficiency
falls to about 60% after 15 years of age. This is due
to the design/material of the heat exchanger which begins
to rust after just a few years. The simple nature of
these older furnaces make them reliable so most people
are reluctant to replace them. The average furnace today
is about 80% efficient. This means for every dollar
you spend on heating your home, 20 cents goes up your
chimney in the form of unusable heat and is wasted.
This is considered to be a mid-efficiency furnace. These
furnaces began to appear around 1990 and are considered
draft induced because there is a small blower that draws
air through the furnace and then pumps it up the chimney.
The heat dissipation in this design is much more stable
and so it remains closer to 80% efficiency for most
of its expected service life of around 15 to 20 years.
In the past several years people have been becoming
aware the high efficiency heating and air conditioning
equipment entering the market. The high efficiency furnace
is a furnace with two heat exchangers, one or more levels
of heat, and multiple fan speeds. The newest are now
available with variable speed fans which drastically
reduce electricity consumption while reducing noise
and greatly increasing comfort. The average high efficiency
furnace is 90% efficient but some are as high as 95%
efficiency. The result is evident in a simple comparison.
Compare an old furnace to a high efficiency one. First
you must understand that since a more efficient furnace
does not need to be the same size as an old one because
it turns more potential heat into the home instead of
up the chimney. A 2300 square foot home built in 1990
came with a 150,000 BTU natural draft furnace which
is around 70% efficient. (Most people in the industry
will agree this is closer to 60% efficiency.) The amount
of heat entering the home is about 105,000 BTU. A home
this size needs 80,000 to 90,000 BTU of usable heat
to properly heat it. Most homes are built with slightly
larger than needed furnaces and smaller than needed
air conditioners. We install a 100,000 BTU furnace that
is 93% efficient and it delivers 93,000 BTU of usable
heat into the home. The end result is instead of expelling
45,000 BTU of heat up your chimney, you only loose 7,000
BTU. You have just reduces your energy cost by over
33%! This is a conservative estimate.
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