One of the most important mobile home furnace parts is the heat exchanger. Your everyday standing pilot gas furnace (the majority of residential gas furnaces are still standing pilot types, although they are gradually being replaced by newer high efficiency mobile home furnaces, which have pilot lights that do not run all the time.) contains the combustion compartment with a gas burner and pilot light. The fuel air mixture is combined and ignited as it leaves the burner. On top of that sits the heat exchanger, which takes the heat from the combustion process and transfers it to air flowing through it. This air is subject to very high temperatures, somewhere in the range of 750° Fahrenheit. Because heat exchangers get so hot, it’s very important that adequate air flow is uniformly spread across all sections of the heat exchanger. If not, one section of the heat exchanger can overheat causing a failure.
A heat exchanger can also become covered with soot and carbon reducing operating efficiency of the furnace. For this reason regular maintenance of the furnace should always include a thorough cleaning. Unfortunately this is not an easy or inexpensive, because the furnaces are often difficult to disassemble in order to access as the affected parts. Just like any time you smell gas, we recommend you have a qualified technician perform this maintenance. Some mobile home furnace parts are best left to the professionals.
Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency (AFUE) rating is a standard set by the Department of Energy back in 1992. The higher the AFUE rating, the more efficient the system, which means less money spent on utilities for people like you and me. What this means is by replacing your old mobile home furnace that was running with a 75% AFUE, with a 90% model, you say 15% on your utility bills every year, which means that your mobile home furnace will eventually pay for itself and savings.
You can turn the words in the numbers fairly easily; a mid efficiency gas furnace has AFUE ratings from 78 to 82%. The high efficiency models are rated it 90% or even higher. An interesting note about the high efficiency furnace is that instead of a standing pilot light, they’re actually controlled by circuit board. They also have two and sometimes three heat exchangers in order to achieve the higher performance. Hopefully this gave you a little bit more information about your mobile home furnace parts, if you have any questions just send them to us.