Furnace Replacement Cost Calculator: 2026 Installed Prices

Gas Furnace Replacement Cost by Size (2026)

All figures are installed prices at the standard tier (80% AFUE single-stage) and national-average labor - equipment, labor, permit, and disposal of the old furnace. Not sure which input-BTU size your home needs? Run the numbers through the furnace size calculator first - paying to install an oversized furnace is the most common (and most expensive) mistake in heating quotes.

How much does a furnace cost, how much is it to replace a furnace and how much to replace a furnace all come down to the installed total. The same total answers what is the cost of new furnace and installation, how much for new furnace and how much does a furnace cost to replace. On a quote, the price of furnace replacement and the cost for furnace replacement are that installed total. For a standard gas furnace that runs from about $4,200 for the smallest sizes to $5,600 for a 120,000 BTU unit, with a full range of $3,700 to $6,200 at national-average labor.

That is the typical furnace replacement cost for a like-for-like swap. The price of a new furnace installed moves outside it only when the efficiency tier, the region or the ductwork changes. A natural gas furnace replacement cost and a new gas furnace cost are one and the same figure here, since natural gas is the fuel the table assumes, and it applies to any home furnace replacement cost where the old unit was gas too.

New Furnace Cost by Home Size: 1,000 to 3,000 Sq Ft

New furnace cost follows the size of the furnace, and the size of the furnace follows the house and the winter it has to heat through. So how much does a new furnace cost for your home depends on which row of this table it lands in. This is what the square footage helper in the calculator returns for average insulation, with the installed price of a standard gas furnace at each step.

Two things stand out. A 1,000 and a 1,200 sq ft home in a mixed climate land on the same $4,200, because the smallest furnaces share one price. And the cells at the bottom right have run past 120,000 BTU, the largest size the calculator prices. Large homes in cold states are often heated by two furnaces, about $10,200 for a pair of 100,000 BTU units, or they come in under 120,000 BTU once a Manual J load calculation counts the real insulation.

Tip: price the furnace your house needs, not the one being taken out. The old unit was often sized by guesswork, so check the size before you check the price.

Electric Furnace Cost vs Gas (2026)

A new electric furnace cost is the lowest of any fuel. Switch the fuel selector above to Electric and the price drops noticeably. That is not a trick of the calculator: an electric furnace genuinely costs less to put in, because there is no flue to run, no gas line to bring in, no combustion air supply and no gas permit. It is a cabinet of heating elements and a blower.

Now the part that matters more than the purchase price. Electric furnace cost is lower to install and roughly three times higher to run at typical US rates, because resistance heat buys you one unit of heat per unit of electricity while gas delivers the same heat far more cheaply per BTU. That $1,500 saving is recovered by the utility company inside a couple of winters in a cold climate, and never in a warm one where you barely run it.

So electric makes sense in three situations and rarely otherwise: there is no gas at the street and bringing it in costs thousands, the climate is mild enough that annual heating hours are low, or the furnace is a backup element behind a heat pump doing most of the work. If you are going all-electric by choice, a heat pump beats a resistance furnace by roughly two thirds on running cost and is the better place to put the money. The full running-cost arithmetic, with the break-even electricity rate, is on the furnace size calculator.

Propane Furnace Installation Cost

Propane furnace installation cost starts from the natural gas furnace cost, because it is the same furnace. A natural gas model becomes a propane one with the manufacturer's conversion kit, which swaps the burner orifices and resets the gas valve, so leave the fuel selector on Gas and read the price as it stands. Propane furnace replacement cost for an 80,000 BTU unit is the same $4,100-$5,200 installed, plus the kit and the time to fit it.

What propane changes is everything outside the furnace. A home with no tank needs one set, along with a regulator and a line to the house, and none of that is in a furnace quote unless it is written there. Running cost is the other difference. A gallon of propane holds about 91,500 BTU, so an 80% AFUE furnace delivers roughly 73,000 BTU of heat from it, and owners report paying $2.25 to $2.50 a gallon.

Tip: ask every installer to write “propane conversion kit included” on the quote. A furnace left on natural gas orifices and fed propane is unsafe, and the kit is the line item that gets forgotten.

Oil Furnace Replacement Cost: What Is Different

Our calculator prices gas and electric furnaces. It does not price oil, so this section tells you what an oil quote has in it that a gas quote does not, and leaves the figure to the contractor.

• The burner. An oil furnace has a separate burner assembly that has to be set up with combustion test instruments on site, which is skilled labor a gas swap does not need.
• The tank. Reusing a sound tank costs nothing. Replacing an old one, or removing a buried one, can rival the furnace itself.
• The chimney. A new, more efficient oil furnace often needs a stainless liner in an older masonry chimney.
• Yearly service. Oil burners need a nozzle, filter and cleaning every year, which gas furnaces largely do not.

Tip: ask for an oil furnace replacement cost split into furnace, tank and chimney, because only the first of those three compares with the gas prices on this page. If natural gas is at the street, also get a quote to convert, and set the gas price above against the oil furnace installation cost you were given. A new oil furnace cost only looks high or low once the tank and the chimney are taken out of it.

Furnace Installation Cost Estimate: What's Included in an Installed Price

A furnace installation cost estimate should always cover four things: the equipment itself, labor (typically a one-day job for a like-for-like swap), the mechanical permit, and haul-away of the old unit. So the cost to remove old furnace equipment is already inside the installed price, and it should not appear as a separate charge on a like-for-like swap. A furnace in an attic or a crawlspace is the exception to the one-day rule, because access adds labor. What moves the number beyond that is scope. Reusing existing gas line, venting, and ductwork keeps you in the base ranges above. A first-time installation - or a fuel switch - adds gas-line work and flue or PVC venting. And ductwork is the biggest wildcard of all: sealing and minor modifications add about $2,000, while a full duct replacement adds $6,500 or more. Select the matching ductwork condition in the calculator to see your total with those line items included.

Efficiency tier is the other lever. Stepping an 80,000 BTU furnace from 80% AFUE single-stage to a 96% AFUE two-stage model moves the installed price from about $4,100-$5,200 to $4,900-$6,200; a modulating 97%+ unit runs $5,900-$7,600. Cold-climate homes usually earn that premium back in fuel savings; mild-winter homes often don't.

Furnace Installation Labor Cost and Prices by Region

Furnace installation labor cost is about $1,500 of a $4,700 gas furnace job in an average market, and $1,200 on an electric furnace, where there is no flue or gas line to connect. The calculator shows it as its own line under every price. Labor here means the installers' time in your house. The contractor's overhead and margin sit in the equipment and materials line, which is why guides that fold all of it into “labor” quote a bigger share.

The labor cost to install a furnace does not grow with the furnace. A 120,000 BTU unit takes the crew much the same day as a 60,000 BTU one, so on a bigger furnace you are paying for more equipment, not more hours. The average cost of furnace replacement is the $4,700 in the second row, and owner reports follow the same regional pattern: a homeowner north of Boston paid $8,500 for a 95% furnace, while an owner elsewhere was quoted $4,300 for a 96% AFUE, 80,000 BTU furnace.

Tip: match the region setting to your own market before you call a quote high. The furnace replacement price for the same furnace is $2,300 higher in the dearest market than in the cheapest, and none of that difference is the equipment.

High Efficiency Furnace Cost: 80% vs 96% AFUE

Whether the quote calls it high efficiency furnace installation cost or high efficiency furnace replacement cost, the step up is priced the same way. High efficiency furnace cost is the first choice on most quotes, and the price step is the same shape at every size. The calculator has three tiers: an 80% AFUE single-stage furnace, a 96% AFUE two-stage one, and a 97% or better modulating one.

The payback is arithmetic you can do yourself. On an 80,000 BTU unit the new high efficiency gas furnace cost is $5,600 against $4,700 for the 80% model. A 96% furnace burns about 17% less gas than an 80% one for the same heat. If you spend $1,000 a winter on heating gas, that is about $170 a year, and the $900 step on an 80,000 BTU furnace is paid back in a little over five years. At $400 a winter it takes thirteen, which is most of the furnace's life.

A 96% furnace also vents differently. It exhausts through plastic pipe out a side wall and makes condensate that needs a drain, so a first conversion from an 80% unit adds venting work that a like-for-like swap does not. If a gas water heater shared the old chimney, ask what happens to it, because it may now need a liner of its own.

Is a Two-Stage or Modulating Furnace Worth the Money?

A two-stage furnace runs on a low flame most of the time and saves the high one for the coldest days. A modulating furnace adjusts in small steps. What you buy with both is comfort: longer, quieter cycles and steadier room temperatures. What you do not buy is much fuel, because staging on its own barely changes the efficiency.

Owners report being quoted $1,000 to $1,600 extra for two-stage and about $3,000 extra for the top modulating model, against the $900 and $2,000 steps in the table above. One owner priced the equipment alone and found the two-stage version cost a few hundred dollars more, so the rest of an upcharge that size is margin.

Tip: pay for 96% AFUE where winters are long, and pay for staging only if the comfort is worth it to you. If a two-stage upcharge runs well past $1,000, ask for the single-stage price in writing and compare.

Furnace Replacement Cost Estimator vs a Contractor's Written Estimate

The tool at the top works as a gas furnace replacement cost estimator, and with the fuel switched it prices an electric one too. Some people simply call it a furnace replacement calculator. A furnace installation estimate from a contractor is a different thing, and the difference matters. Worth knowing before you collect a single furnace replacement estimate: an estimate and a quote are not the same document, and contractors use the words loosely. An estimate is a considered guess that can move once someone opens up your ductwork. A quote, sometimes called a firm bid, is a price the contractor is agreeing to hold. Ask which one you are being handed, because the answer decides whether the number on the paper is the number you pay.

A furnace installation cost estimate is only comparable to another one if it lists the same things. Before you put two side by side, check that each shows the specific model number and its AFUE, the input BTU size and what that size was based on, whether a permit and inspection are included, whether hauling the old unit away is included, and any code work the installer expects to trigger, which is usually venting, gas line sizing, or the electrical disconnect.

The gap between what this estimator returns and what a contractor writes down is almost always one of those line items rather than the furnace itself. Two bids on identical equipment can sit $2,000 apart because one includes a new liner for the chimney and the other has quietly left it out.

Tip: compare the line items, never the bottom line. The cheapest total on the pile is frequently the one with the least written on it, and everything missing from the page reappears later as a change order.

Why Furnace Quotes Range from $3,000 to $10,000+ for the Same House

Collect three furnace quotes and you'll likely see numbers that differ by thousands for essentially the same job - and the equipment is rarely the reason. The biggest driver is company overhead: contractors who publish their pricing on camera quote entry-level single-stage installs anywhere from about $3,000-$4,900 at lean operations to $6,000-$8,000 at large fleet companies with showrooms and ad budgets - and homeowners regularly report paying under $3,000 at small two-truck shops. The furnace inside is often the same tier.

The rest of the spread comes from brand positioning (premium labels run 10-20% over mid-tier for similar hardware), scope add-ons (ductwork, a new gas line, venting changes, or bundled air-quality upgrades), and region. This calculator prices a mid-tier brand at your selected labor market (every constant is published in our cost model methodology), so treat it as the fair-price anchor: quotes far below it deserve a scope check (what's missing?), and quotes far above it deserve an overhead question (what am I paying for?). Get at least one bid from a smaller local operator alongside the big names, and before signing anything check what's left in 2026 HVAC rebates and tax credits - the federal 25C credit is gone, but utility and state programs still knock real money off high-efficiency furnaces.

How Long Does a Furnace Last? Replace Before It Dies or Wait

How long does a furnace last: a gas furnace typically runs 15 to 20 years and sometimes 25, and an electric furnace often goes longer because it has no burner or heat exchanger to wear out. Owners regularly describe furnaces still heating at 25 and 28 years old, so furnace lifespan is a range and age alone is not a reason to replace one.

What age does change is how much repair is worth buying. Under the rule in the next section, a 15 year old furnace justifies a repair up to about $330 and a 20 year old one about $250. One owner paid $1,000 for a control board on an old furnace, which is the kind of bill that rule exists to question.

The case for replacing early is not efficiency, it is timing. A furnace that fails in January is replaced by whoever can come that week, and the cost to replace furnace equipment in an emergency is whatever they name. One replaced in September is replaced by the best of three quotes. The full lifespan table for every system type is on the HVAC replacement cost calculator.

Tip: at 15 years, get a new furnace estimate from three contractors and keep them, then replace on the first repair that fails the test below. One fault comes before the age test: a cracked heat exchanger can leak carbon monoxide, so that furnace is shut off until the exchanger or the whole furnace is replaced, and on an older furnace the new furnace usually wins.

Furnace Repair Cost Calculator: Repair or Replace?

Before pricing a replacement, sanity-check the repair route with the repair or replace: the $5,000 rule. The common furnace repairs, cheapest first. The further down a repair sits, the younger the furnace on which the rule says to replace instead:

Smaller fixes such as an ignitor or a flame sensor pass the rule on a furnace up to about 20 years old. To find which part has actually failed, the furnace not working checker narrows it down by symptom. Need the AC side too? The AC repair cost calculator prices capacitors, coils and compressors.

Part names change from one quote to the next, which makes them hard to compare. A furnace circuit board replacement cost, or a furnace motherboard replacement cost, is the control board row. A furnace fan motor replacement cost is the blower motor, and a draft inducer motor is the inducer motor row. The cost to replace an igniter on a furnace is the ignitor row, whichever way it is spelled. The four cheapest rows are the sensors and safeties, and the cost to replace a flame sensor on a furnace is often no more than a cleaning. The cost to replace a limit switch on a furnace is worth paying once, but a switch that trips again is telling you the airflow is wrong.

So when the question is the cost to fix a furnace, find the part on the quote, match it to a row, and apply the $5,000 rule before agreeing to anything. A mobile home furnace replacement cost is a separate case. Manufactured homes take furnaces approved for that use, so the sizes and prices in this guide do not carry over.

Replacing the AC Too?

If your air conditioner is a similar age, price the combined job before committing to a furnace-only swap - doing both at once saves about 10% through shared labor and a single permit. The furnace and AC replacement cost calculator prices full combo systems, heat pumps, and mini splits, and the central air installation cost calculator handles AC-only jobs.