Furnace Installation in Pella, IA
A new furnace here will run from October through May every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Marion County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Eight months of heat in Pella, most nights near 17°F
Furnaces in Pella run from October through May. That is eight months of the year, and on winter nights the average low is 17°F, so a new furnace has to hold a house warm through long, cold stretches, not just take the edge off.
Most homes here heat with gas, and any non-weatherized gas furnace built since November 2015 has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE by federal rule. Winter storms are part of the picture too. Marion County has seen 20 winter storms and 79 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and across Iowa, 15 percent of households lost power for at least 24 hours in 2024. A furnace installed here needs to be sized and set up to work through what the season actually brings.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 17°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 60%
- of homes here heat with gas, so most furnaces here burn gas
- 80% AFUE
- the federal minimum any new unit must meet
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
A high-efficiency gas furnace would save about $90 a year to run in Marion County compared with a gas furnace.
Estimates for a typical Marion County home, from EIA household energy data, Iowa fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
Iowa requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The Iowa Plumbing and Mechanical Systems Board tests and licenses HVAC contractors statewide. That license belongs to the contractor, not to any single job, so it stays with them from one installation to the next.
For a furnace installation, the license tells you the contractor has been tested and is on record with the state. It does not replace the permit and inspection most cities and counties require when a furnace gets replaced. That inspection is what checks the gas connections and venting on the finished job, separate from whatever the state license already covers. In Marion County, where most homes heat with gas, that inspection matters as much as the license does.
Sources: Iowa Legislature · Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing
- What size furnace does my house need?
- It depends on your square footage, your insulation, your windows, and how your 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. Putting in a furnace that is too big or too small for the house causes problems either way, so this is worth getting right rather than guessing. Ask the contractor to walk you through the calculation for your house before they quote a size.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- The clearest sign is your furnace struggling to keep up on the coldest nights, since winter lows here average 17°F. If it is short cycling, running longer than it used to, or needing repairs more than once a season, those are signs the furnace is wearing out rather than having a bad week. Age matters too. A furnace installed 15 to 20 years ago is well into the range where replacement starts to make more sense than another repair. Since homes here need heat from October through May, eight months of the year, a furnace that is struggling has a lot of months left to fail in.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- Every new gas furnace sold today has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE, and high-efficiency models go higher than that, meaning less of the gas you pay for goes up the flue instead of into your house. With 60.1 percent of homes here heating with gas, and eight months of heating season to get through, that difference shows up more here than it would somewhere with a short, mild winter. A contractor can tell you what efficiency level makes sense for your house and your furnace's venting, since not every home is set up the same way for a high-efficiency model.