Furnace Installation in Yakima, WA
A new furnace here will run from September through June every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Yakima County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Ten months of heat in Yakima County
Furnaces here run from September through June. That leaves two months off, and ten months where the house depends on the burner lighting every time it's asked to. Winter nights average 24°F from December through February, so a furnace that struggles to keep up shows it fast.
Most homes in the county use electric heat, and the power doesn't always stay on. Over the past ten years the area has seen 62 winter storms and 21 damaging wind events, and in 2024, close to a quarter of Washington households lost power for a full day or more. A new furnace should be sized and installed to hold up through that kind of winter. Any non-weatherized gas furnace built new has to reach at least 80 percent AFUE, so that's the floor for efficiency, not a selling point.
- 10 months
- September through June, your furnace is on duty
- 24°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 80% AFUE
- the federal minimum any new unit must meet
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
Washington requires contractors to register with the state.
Registration means the contractor's business is on file with the Department of Labor and Industries, along with proof of bond and insurance. It is not a trade test and the state does not check the work itself. Nothing about registration says whether the person doing your install knows a furnace.
For a furnace installation, the protection in Yakima County comes from the local building office, not from the state registration. Most cities and counties require a permit before a furnace is replaced, and an inspection once it's in. That inspection is what checks the gas connection and venting, the part of the job that can hurt someone if it's done wrong.
Source: Washington State Legislature
- What size furnace does my house need?
- The right size depends on your square footage, your insulation, your windows, and your ceiling height, so there is no number that works for every house. A contractor sizes it by running a load calculation on your home, not by matching the furnace you had before. Going bigger than what the calculation says does not mean more comfort. An oversized furnace cycles on and off too fast, which wears out parts sooner and leaves rooms uneven. With winter lows here averaging 24°F and heat needed from September through June, getting the size right matters more than it would somewhere milder, because your furnace is working most of the year.
- How do I know it's time to replace my furnace?
- Age is one thing to look at, along with how the furnace is running now. Watch for rooms that used to heat evenly and now do not, a burner flame that looks yellow instead of blue, or a furnace that short cycles, turning on and off before a room warms up. If you are calling for repairs more than once a season, that is a sign the furnace is wearing out rather than having a single bad part. Homes here need heat from September through June, so a furnace that is struggling has to carry that load most of the year.
- Is a high-efficiency furnace worth it?
- It depends on how long you plan to stay in the house and how much you run the furnace. Federal rules already require new non-weatherized gas furnaces to reach at least 80 percent AFUE, so even a standard model recovers most of the fuel it burns. High-efficiency models go higher than that, meaning less fuel lost out the vent, but they cost more upfront and add a second heat exchanger and a condensate drain that can need service. In a place where homes need heat from September through June, ten months a year, the fuel savings have more months to add up than they would somewhere with a short winter. A contractor can run the numbers for your specific house and fuel type.