Furnace Installation in Newark, NJ
A new furnace here will run from October through May every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Essex County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Eight months of heat, and nights near 25 degrees
Newark homes need a working furnace from October through May. That's eight months a year, with winter nights averaging 25°F. A new furnace has to hold steady through that whole stretch, not just the coldest weeks.
Most homes here heat with gas, and any non-weatherized gas furnace built after November 2015 has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE. That's the federal floor, not a target, so it's worth asking what efficiency the unit going into your house actually hits. Essex County has seen 36 winter storms and 61 damaging wind events over the past ten years, and across New Jersey, 11 percent of households lost power for a full day or more in 2024. A gas furnace still needs electricity to run its ignition and blower, so an outage takes the heat down with the lights.
- 8 months
- October through May, your furnace is on duty
- 25°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 72%
- 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 $130 a year to run in Essex County compared with a gas furnace.
Estimates for a typical Essex County home, from EIA household energy data, New Jersey fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
New Jersey requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The license is issued to the contractor, not to the job. It covers this furnace installation and every other job that contractor takes on. New Jersey tests and records contractors at the state level. No city or town in Essex County can add its own license requirement on top of that, so the license you check on this contractor is the same one anywhere in the county.
That state license is what stands behind whoever installs your furnace. The other check on the work is local. Essex County towns require a permit for a furnace replacement, and an inspector looks at the finished work before it's signed off. Most homes in Essex County heat with gas, and that inspection is where the gas connection gets checked, since a bad connection is the part of this job that can hurt someone.
Sources: New Jersey Legislature · New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs
- What size furnace does my house need?
- The right size comes from a load calculation, not from the square footage of your house alone. A contractor measures your walls, windows, insulation and ceiling height and works out how much heat the house actually loses on a cold night. Too big and the furnace short-cycles, heating fast then shutting off before it warms the house evenly. Too small and it runs constantly and still can't keep up. With winter lows here averaging 25°F, getting this number right matters more than it would somewhere milder.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- Age is one sign, and so is how the furnace is behaving right now. Watch for rooms that heat unevenly, a furnace that cycles on and off more than it used to, or a rise in gas use with no other explanation. If a technician tells you the heat exchanger is cracked, that's not a repair, that's a replacement, since a cracked heat exchanger can let combustion gases into the house. With heat needed here from October through May, a furnace that's already struggling in fall is one you don't want to gamble on through winter.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- It depends on how many months your furnace runs and how long you plan to stay in the house. Homes here need heat about 8 months a year, so a furnace here works harder and longer than one in a milder climate, which gives efficiency more room to matter. Every furnace built since November 2015 has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE, and high-efficiency models go higher than that, meaning more of the gas you burn turns into heat in the house instead of going out the flue. A contractor can walk you through the actual models and what they'd cost installed in your house.