Furnace & AC

Home Comfort

The Molitor Plumbing, Heating, & Cooling team recommends using matched energy-efficient forced air furnaces and air conditioners for your home. For over 27 years, we have proudly serviced all major brands and professionally installed all types of central heating and cooling systems for homes in our area.

The choice of heating and cooling systems for residential use will vary. Most homes here in the tri-state area of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa use a matched central air system, an air conditioner, and furnace that heats and cools by working together to provide an efficient, comfortable indoor climate for your family year around.

About half the amount of your monthly utility bills reflect how much energy is being used throughout the home through the seasons. With the rising costs of electricity and natural or propane gas, making smart decisions on your home’s heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) system will greatly help in meeting your budget.

Central Heating & Cooling Systems

Most homes today in the upper Midwest climate zone are equipped with a standard forced air furnace, powered by natural gas or electricity. Heat pumps both cool and heat the home in conjunction with a furnace. Electric heat pumps, however, become less effective during our cold weather months when temperatures often reach below 25 degrees. At that point, most, if not all, heat production comes from the furnace.

Whether your preference is gas or electric, the basics of a ducted, forced air furnace are virtually the same regardless of brand or power source. Air is heated within your furnace and distributed throughout the house by a blower, which forces heated air out through a system of ducts and vents to your rooms.

Gas furnace parts include a thermostat control system, gas valve, burners, heat exchangers, a blower, and exhaust flue. Electric furnaces have thermostat-controlled heating elements and blower, but have less parts because they don’t require heat exchangers or vent exhaust.

It’s important to know that, while electric furnaces may last a bit longer, gas furnaces are far more energy-efficient, putting out much higher BTUs (energy measured in British Thermal Units) that help save on utility costs. Remember too, that a gas furnace does use electricity for its blower. So, if an electric outage occurs, the gas furnace will automatically stop working as well.

Central Cooling – Air Conditioner

In the upper Midwest, energy-efficient outdoor central air conditioning units are usually matched with an indoor forced air furnace. The air conditioner acts much the same as your refrigerator. It takes warm air, moves it through a refrigerant system of tubes and coils or fins and then delivers the cool air through the home’s furnace blower, ductwork and out to room vents.

Air conditioners are installed outdoors adjacent to the house and near as possible to the indoor furnace. The air conditioning unit has four essential parts: a condenser, an evaporator, a compressor and fan to dissipate the heat. The evaporator is mounted inside the furnace cabinet with a drain line that carries water condensation to the floor drain.

Size Does Matter

An advantage of working with a trusted heating and cooling contractor, such as Molitor Plumbing, Heating & Cooling, is making sure that your air conditioner is sized properly for the square footage of your home. Selecting just the right size for your air conditioner will give you the best energy cost savings and proper humidity control.

Our experienced team will assess not only space factors, but important considerations of how well your home is insulated (including ductwork seals), airflow balance among the rooms and how your family uses the system for desired comfort level.

Automation “smart” programmable controls can help reduce the amount of energy used to cool and heat your home. For instance, depending on weather conditions, you may want just a controlled “fan-only” setting to create air movement on days of moderate heat and lower relative humidity.