Did you know that 25% of all energy produced globally is used to heat and cool our residential and commercial spaces?
According to a study by the International Energy Agency (IEA), keeping our homes and offices in pleasant temperatures all year round comes at a terrible cost to the planet.
It increases carbon emissions, causes environmental disruption, and worsens climate change.
Thankfully, science has greener alternatives.
Eco-friendly boilers are a heating solution for residential and commercial buildings that are quickly gaining ground. As an HVAC company operating in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, we get hordes of calls every day from our consumers looking for eco-friendly boiler installation and purchase advice.
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So, we’re writing this article with the intent to broaden this discussion. We are going to tell you what eco-friendly boilers are, their different types, and how they help the environment.
The Need for Eco-Friendly Boilers
Replacing traditional boilers with modern sustainable solutions comes at a price tag. Therefore, you must understand why this expense is necessary.
Traditional boilers are not only harmful to the environment in the long term but also have short-term disadvantages like high energy bills, air pollution, and inefficient heating. Some of these challenges include:
- Carbon emissions: Traditional boilers run on fossil fuels such as natural gas, oil, and coal. As a result, they release massive amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses that are poisonous to the environment.
- Energy inefficiency: Compared to eco-friendly boilers, traditional ones used significantly high amounts of energy to produce the same amount of heat, increasing costs.
- Air pollution: Conventional boilers may also release nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide in addition to other pollutants when in use.
- Resource depletion: Natural planetary resources are finite and are being severely depleted to sustain conventional heating systems.
- Environmental disruption: The extraction, transportation, and refining of fossil fuels disrupt ecosystems, damaging local habitats, causing water pollution, and affecting wildlife.
To combat all these challenges, it’s necessary to adopt a more climate-friendly way to heat our homes.
Eco-friendly boilers are a solution we can put our money in.
Types of Eco-Friendly Boilers
While we always recommend regular boiler maintenance in PA for optimum energy efficiency, a traditional boiler can only be efficient up to a point.
For more sustainable efficiency, you have to look for boiler options that use renewable energy sources.
Here is a list of some of the eco-friendliest types of boilers for homes in PA.
● Condensing Boilers
Condensing boilers are the most budget-friendly green boiler options. They are similar to conventional boilers in the sense that they both run on oil or gas, but a condensing boiler has something that a typical boiler doesn’t: a condensing area.
This area allows the flue gas — a gas mixture that generates when fuel burns — to turn into water vapors and thus pose no threat to the environment.
Condensing boilers deliver energy efficiency of up to at least 90%, which can be even higher when you use top-of-the-range units.
● Biomass Boilers
Biomass boilers are another green solution for central heating that is quickly gaining popularity. Called carbon-neutral solutions, they use organic materials such as wood pallets, sawdust, and plant-based materials to generate heat for the home.
Now this process also generates carbon dioxide, but the emissions are considered balanced as they get absorbed by the soil for the growth of the biomass feedstock.
For biomass boilers to be effective for the environment, it’s necessary to create more trees so they can absorb the carbon dioxide being created by growing and burning all that wood. If not enough new trees are planted, biomass boilers can be more harmful to the environment.
● Electric Boilers
If you aren’t at all happy with the emissions of a biomass boiler, electric boilers are a solution with absolutely no emission issues. Since they run 100% on electricity, you only need to consider your electricity costs.
But there is one caveat: most electricity producers use fossil fuels to generate power. If your electric boiler is not using renewable electricity, it may not be completely eco-friendly.
● Combination Boilers
A combination boiler is a heating system that combines the functions of a water heater and a central boiler. So, just one system performs two roles, bringing your installation and maintenance costs down, and your utility bills lower, plus also offering space-saving in the home.
As expert boiler maintenance services in PA, we recommend using combination boilers for smaller spaces and budget-friendly options.
● Geothermal Heat Pumps
Heat pumps are probably one of the most eco-friendly solutions on this list. Also called geothermal heat pumps, they use the heat from the air, ground, and water sources and transfer it inside the house for central heating and cooling purposes.
They produce no emissions, use no gas for burning anything, and have minimum energy consumption. Some top-of-the-market heat pumps offer energy efficiency of up to 400% but even if you are buying an average unit, you’ll still pay a lot less on utility and enjoy much more even temperatures indoors.
From January 2023, the purchase and installation of heat pumps is also a tax-deductible expense. Federal tax credits give you a rebate of 30% up to $2,000 when you buy and install a new heat pump unit.
● Solar Thermal Boilers
These systems use solar panels mounted on the roof or the south-facing walls. The panels have special collectors in them that absorb the sun’s radiation and transfer it into heat that can be used to sustain indoor heating and cooling.
They generate no emissions and pay for themselves over a few years in cost-savings you do through much-reduced utility bills.
A recap of Advantages of Using Eco-friendly Boilers
Here is a list of incredible benefits of using eco-friendly boilers to keep your indoor temperature even and comfortable.
- Low carbon emissions: Most eco-friendly boilers either emit no amount of greenhouse gases or emit much lower than what conventional boilers do. So, if you are a climate-conscious consumer, an eco-friendly boiler is the thing you can bet on.
- Energy-efficient: They use significantly fewer resources to produce the same amount of heat and are thus more energy efficient.
- Low utility bills: When you are producing sufficient heat with fewer resources, it automatically brings your energy costs down, giving you more cash to spend on things you love.
- Reduced maintenance costs: Eco-friendly boilers run on the latest technology and thus run optimally with just bi-annual boiler maintenance in PA.
- Fast and uniform heating: Eco-friendly boilers produce more energy in less time, thus giving you fast and more uniform heating throughout the house.
Conclusion
Heating and cooling systems are such intrinsic parts of our daily living that we often don’t even notice them. Not until they stop working, at least.
But keeping our homes and workplaces in pleasant temperatures affects the climate extremely negatively. It depletes our natural resources, produces massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, and is deadly to the environment.
But with eco-friendly boilers, we now have a greener way to heat our homes and other spaces. Though some green boilers may have high upfront costs, they all pay for themselves when you save exponentially on your energy bills. Your boiler maintenance in PA also becomes more budget-friendly and efficient.
Call us at 267-471-9323 for the best boiler maintenance services in PA and get a free estimate for your boiler installation needs too.