ACHR NEWS Editorial Staff

WASHINGTON — The American Gas Association (AGA) on Monday, Dec. 18, joined other trade associations and a manufacturer in filing a legal challenge to a federal rule that will phase out non-condensing gas furnaces beginning in five years.

The final rule from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), issued recently, requires newly manufactured indoor residential gas furnaces to be at least 95% efficient starting in December 2028, meaning furnaces made after then will have to be condensing models.

In a press release, AGA said it has long supported improved building and appliance energy codes and standards that are technologically feasible, economically justified, and follow statutory requirements, but that the DOE’s furnace rule does not meet those standards.
 
The rule will effectively ban the sale of non-condensing gas furnaces and will affect 55% of U.S. households, according to AGA. DOE’s own data shows that 30% of senior-only households, 26% of low-income households, and 27% of the owners of small businesses will face higher costs as a result of the new regulation, AGA said. For households with mobile home gas furnaces, 39% of consumers would be negatively affected by the proposed standard, according to DOE’s analysis.
 
“AGA has attempted to work with the Department of Energy to address the rule’s profound impacts on consumers and homeowners with a solutions-oriented approach to energy conservation that protects consumers and ensures continued availability of low-cost, low-emission natural gas furnaces. Unfortunately, our 114 pages of comments have been summarily ignored,” said AGA President and CEO Karen Harbert. “This ruling from DOE will push American families with natural gas heat into a corner — when their furnace goes out, they’ll be forced to choose between retrofitting for electric with the increased month-to-month utility bills that entails, or engaging in a costly and time-consuming renovation to retrofit their home for a completely different type of natural gas furnace. Either way, American families and businesses will be saddled with increased costs with little environmental gain.”

The rule would make conventional, non-condensing natural gas furnaces unavailable to consumers. These furnaces rely on atmospheric venting that typically uses chimneys to vent to the outside. Condensing furnaces rely on different venting systems and are often difficult or impossible to substitute in place of non-condensing models due to physical limitations, especially in older homes and low-income neighborhoods where homes cannot accommodate the venting and water hookup requirements of a condensing furnace.

Consumers in homes that cannot accommodate a condensing furnace would be forced to switch to electric heating, which can have higher emissions and increase monthly costs, when it comes time for a retrofit, AGA’s press release said.

According to the most recent survey conducted by AGA in partnership with the Consortium for Energy Efficiency, natural gas utilities collectively spent almost $1.6 billion on energy efficiency programs in 2020, a 391% increase in spending compared to 2007. This spending resulted in total savings of at least 325 million therms of energy in 2020 alone, AGA said. That’s 1.7 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions, the equivalent of driving 4.6 billion miles.