When buying a Lennox Furnaces, what furnace term does the acronym AFUE stand for?”
Buying a furnace must be the only lifetime chore where you have to learn more acronyms than when you are buying a computer! The industry is littered with three-, four- and five-letter contractions, all indicating some sort of standards compliance. They may sound confusing, but if you’re purchasing a furnace, it is much better to see these contractions than not! We let you in on the simple explanations for the industry code. AFUE This is one of the most important numbers you’ll see in comparisons of various furnaces. It refers to the annual fuel utilization efficicency, and you might hear the contraction pronounced “Ay-few” rather than “A-F-U-E.” This measure applies to water heaters, furnaces and boilers. It is a real-world measure of efficiency, rather than a number determined in the lab. It is possible to get percentage of up to 95% AFUE in your furnace — anything over 90% is designated as high efficiency. Central electric heating yields an AFUE of 100% — but is a large and expensi
The annual fuel utilization efficiency (AFUE; pronounced ‘A’-‘Few’) is a thermal efficiency measure of combustion equipment like furnaces, boilers, and water heaters. The AFUE differs from the true ‘thermal efficiency’ in that it is not a steady-state, peak measure of conversion efficiency, but instead attempts to represent the actual, season-long, average efficiency of that piece of equipment, including the operating transients. The method for determining the AFUE for residential furnaces is the subject of ASHRAE Standard 103. A furnace with a thermal efficiency (ηth) of 78% may yield an AFUE of only 64% or so, for example, under the Standard’s test conditions. When estimating annual or seasonal energy used by combustion devices, the AFUE is the better efficiency measure to use in the calculations. But for an instantaneous fuel consumption rate, the thermal efficiency may be better. Learn more at the link below.
AFUE This is one of the most important numbers you’ll see in comparisons of various furnaces. It refers to the annual fuel utilization efficiency, and you might hear the contraction pronounced “Ay-few” rather than “A-F-U-E.” This measure applies to water heaters, furnaces and boilers. It is a real-world measure of efficiency, rather than a number determined in the lab. It is possible to get percentage of up to 95% AFUE in your furnace — anything over 90% is designated as high efficiency. Central electric heating yields an AFUE of 100% — but is a large and expensive project to install.
