Shopping around for the right heating system can be a strenuous process, especially for us Houstonians since the concept of “heating our homes” is only relevant a few times out of the year.

Just like we have the ability to customize our homes to fit our needs, we also have the ability to select the type of heating for our Houston home. What works for one home might not work for every home, though, so weighing out all of the pros and cons will help you in your search.

Here’s a brief primer on how heating works in general and what you can expect when finding the right heating solution for your home.

There are two different types of heating systems. In Houston, you will likely come across furnaces in homes, but it’s always important to learn all of your options to figure out what works best for your specific household and family.

Forced air systems pull in air from your home, and then use a blower fan to release the hot air back into your home. Radiant systems use convection and/or radiation from the environment to deliver heat into your home.

• Furnaces: use forced air to distribute heat throughout the house
• Boilers: use heated water to distribute heat throughout the house
• Heat pumps: use outside air to distribute heat throughout the house

Let’s start off with a quick refresher on how heat moves. Heat moves up due to its lower density, while cool air moves down due to its higher density. Heat transfers through convection, conduction, and radiation. In other words, heat doesn’t stay put. We all notice when heat moves from something hot, to something cold: for example a cup of coffee sitting out.

The second law of thermodynamics means that heat moves to cold. Another way to look at this is your home and the temperature outside. We’ve all heard that if it’s cold outside, we turn our heater on, and crack open a window, that we might not be very excited when our bill arrives in the mail. This is due to the heat being drawn to the cold weather, causing your home to experience “heat loss.”

Regardless of your home’s primary heating appliance, the goal—heating your home—and how it achieves that goal is relatively similar. Since furnaces tend to be the primary source of heating for Houston homes, we’ve used that as our example.

1. The burner delivers and burns the fuel of choice
2. The fuel then passes through the heat exchanger
3. Cool air from your home flows across the heat exchanger to become warm air
4. Once warmed, the air then flows through a system of ducts to distribute around your household