Furnace vs Heater: What's the Difference?

Trying to decide whether to install a furnace or a heater? Call 201-571-1715 and let our Gladiator Services help you choose the right unit for your home.

During New Jersey’s rugged winters, people often toss around the words “furnace” and “heater.” Learning the meanings of furnace vs heater is valuable for any home or commercial building owner. As Hillsdale’s furnace maintenance experts, we can help you understand the ins and outs of your heating system and keep your system running reliably.

Heaters

Broadly defined, a heater is any device that radiates heat or blows a stream of warmed air. Some examples of heaters include:

• Automobile heaters
• Plug-in electric space heaters
• Propane emergency heaters
• Hand warmers
• Wood-burning stoves
• Fireplaces 

When people say “the heat” or “heater” in the context of indoor comfort, they are often referring to a building’s central heating system. Many of these systems rely on a furnace. The heater system pulls cool air into the furnace, which heats it up, and then the heater pumps that warm air throughout the home.

Furnaces

When it comes to furnace vs heater, the truth is that a furnace is part of a heater system. 

The name furnace derives from the ancient Greek word for oven: fornax. Ancient cultures learned to create ceramics and smelt metals with furnaces, tasks that continue into our era.

Fast-forward several millennia to the late 1800s, when wealthy homeowners began heating their houses with riveted-steel coal-fired furnaces. These furnaces featured ducts leading to floor outlets for the house’s larger rooms.

With no electricity, these early central heating systems relied only on convection — hot air’s natural tendency to rise — to transport heated air throughout the structure. Owing to multiple ducts leading to a central location, these devices became known as octopus furnaces.

As homes and businesses gained access to electricity, electric fans enabled forced-air heating. With fans boosting the airflow, branched ductwork became possible, making the hulking octopus furnaces unnecessary.

Unified forced air heating, ventilation, and air conditioning combos are now the system of choice for most new home construction. Nonetheless, there is an appealing alternative to forced-air HVAC systems.

Boilers

Distributing warm air from a furnace is not the only way to heat a building. As coal furnaces gained popularity, another group of business owners began heating their buildings with coal-fired steam boilers. While furnaces of this era were assembled from riveted steel plates, boilers were cast iron.

Boiler-based systems in the 1800s piped steam to cast iron radiators distributed throughout the structure. Without electricity to circulate the steam, early systems relied on a clever vacuum-return method. Even with this advance, the noise and complexity of steam heat made boiler-based systems unpopular for home use.

Switching from steam to hot water vaulted the popularity of boilers. Now called hydronic systems, hot water heating remains in use to this day. The radiators that distribute the heat from that hot water have evolved enormously.

Modern baseboard units employ copper pipes and hundreds of closely spaced metal fins to heat entire rooms. For energy efficiency, these units beat cast-iron radiators by orders of magnitude. Modern boiler systems now mostly rely on natural gas for fuel.

Hot water pipes are also an efficient way to heat flooring, including natural stone floors. Even though all hydronic systems radiate heat, industry professionals use the term “radiant heating” exclusively for floor heating.

Furnaces vs Boilers: Which Is Better?

With furnaces and boilers using similar technology, some extra confusion has crept into the furnace vs heater vs boiler discussion.

While HVAC professionals are careful to distinguish between boilers and furnaces, many homeowners with hydronic systems refer to their boilers as “the furnace.” Regardless of label, furnaces and boilers carry unique advantages and drawbacks.

Boilers and furnaces both heat homes but provide different experiences. Some features, such as installation cost and energy efficiency, are easy to measure in dollars and cents. Other features are highly subjective.

Furnaces offer some compelling advantages:

• Lower Initial Cost: With new construction, ductwork for a furnace-based forced air system is cheaper and quicker to install than the intricate piping required by boiler-based hydronic systems. Adding central air conditioning magnifies this initial price advantage. With a forced air system, the AC piggybacks on the already existing blower and ductwork. Adding central air to a building with boiler heat requires an extra investment for the ventilation components.
• No Frozen Pipe Risk: The piping for boiler-based heating shares the same risks as water supply piping.
• Quick Warmup: Boiler-based systems take several minutes to warm their heating elements, with additional time for heat distribution to a room. Forced air systems provide a rush of warm air within a half-minute.

Though less popular for new construction, boilers offer their own strong points:

• Lower Long-term Cost: With a well-designed radiator layout, a boiler will consume less natural gas to provide the same heat as a furnace. Further, a hydronic circulation pump requires far less electricity than a forced-air system’s blower motor. A boiler-based system’s annual energy cost undercuts a gas furnace by as much as 20%.
• Less Maintenance: Compared with furnaces, boilers require less maintenance over their service life.
• Less Noise: While the startup noise from a furnace-based forced air system can awaken a sleeping family member, boiler-based hydronic systems carry out their heating mission in blissful silence.

Older houses with hydronic plumbing can become highly energy efficient with today’s boilers. Modest plumbing additions to these houses enable programmable heating zones, further increasing energy efficiency and comfort benefits.

Call Gladiator Services Today! Your Comfort Is Our Mission

When comparing boiler vs furnace vs heater, a heating system always comes down to comfort. Whether you prefer a forced-air boiler or a radiant-heat boiler to heat your home, you need an experienced HVAC company to install it. At Gladiator Services, we’re ready year-round with repair, maintenance, and installation services for home and business climate systems.

Buying a new furnace or boiler may save you considerable money over the long term. Trust our team to install the ideal system for your home or business. Get started today by calling 201-571-1715.