Where I live in the south, my associate and I truly rarely run our furnace.
9 months out of the year require an a/c and a great one at best. The summer time months bring extreme heat and humidity and the a/c is run heavily all day and evening, however during the three months that our furnace was needed, it somehow stopped working and my associate and I needed to call the local Heating and Air Conditioning company to come repair it. In the 10 years that we’ve owned this home, we’ve never had to call an Heating and Air Conditioning specialist to come look at our furnace. The Heating and Air Conditioning specialist arrived to look at our furnace at a reasonable time and got to work instantly, and when he was done servicing the furnace, he told us that there was nothing unique that caused the furnace to malfunction! Unfortunately, the furnace was over 10 years old and it had experienced it’s share of wear and tear. Although my associate and I didn’t run the furnace often, it was still old. According to our Heating and Air Conditioning specialist, a furnace not being used enough can sometimes cause faster wear on the equipment. This was surprising to us, so my associate and I asked the Heating and Air Conditioning specialist if there was a weird heat source that was better for our location with extreme heat and precious cool rapidly changing temperatures, then he recommended my associate and I install a heat pump because it circulated refrigerants to cool our house as well. The heat pump would get used all year long even though my associate and I weren’t just using it for heat.