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Tazewell County recorded 261 severe weather events between 2015 and 2024. That includes 154 damaging wind events, 82 hail events and 15 tornadoes, plus 10 winter storms with heavy snow and ice. Statewide, 16% of Illinois households lost power for 24 hours or more in 2024.
A furnace needs electricity to run, from the igniter to the blower motor. A long outage means no heat until power comes back, no matter how new or efficient the furnace is. Hail and wind do their damage outside, to the parts of the system sitting outdoors, but the same storms are what knock the power out in the first place. Installing a furnace here means planning for both.
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
Half the homes in Tazewell County were built in 1969 or earlier.
A furnace going into a house that old has to match the house, not just the floor plan.
Illinois gas ran $10.64 per million Btu in 2024. That's cheap enough that the highest-efficiency furnace on the lot will take years to earn back its price difference in lower bills. So the question worth spending on isn't the efficiency rating. It's whether the furnace will start reliably on a cold morning and keep running through the kind of storm that knocks out power in this county. A mid-efficiency furnace that starts every time beats a high-efficiency one that doesn't, and here, fit and reliability are what pay off.
Talk to your contractor about where the furnace and any outdoor equipment go, and what happens to your heat the next time the power drops. That's part of the install, not an afterthought.
Find a contractorIf your house is one of the older ones here, built in 1969 or earlier, get a load calculation done rather than a straight swap. That means someone measures your square footage, your windows, how the house is laid out, and sizes the furnace to that. A lot of older homes ended up with a furnace sized off the one before it, which was sized off the one before that, and nobody actually ran the numbers. This is the point to fix that, while it's already being replaced.
A furnace with an electronic ignition needs power to light, every single time it calls for heat. Most furnaces reset themselves and fire right back up once power returns, no intervention needed. But ask the contractor to confirm that for the specific model, and ask what the thermostat does too. A thermostat that loses its programming in an outage can leave a furnace sitting idle even after the lights come back on.
A furnace installed in a basement or utility closet is protected from wind and hail by the walls around it. Ask whether any part of the system, like a direct vent terminal or intake pipe, sits outside the house where debris can block it or damage it. A blocked vent can shut a furnace down on a safety switch even when everything inside is working fine.
Estimates for a typical Tazewell County home, from EIA household energy data, Illinois fuel prices and NOAA climate normals. Your home will differ.
Installation day starts with the old furnace coming out, along with the vent pipe, gas line connection and ductwork transitions tied to it. The installer checks the gas line, the venting and the electrical connection before the new unit ever goes in, because the new furnace has to match what's actually there, not just drop into the old footprint. Setting the furnace means leveling it, connecting the ductwork, sealing those connections so air isn't leaking out before it reaches the rooms, then running the gas line and venting to the new unit. After that comes the electrical hookup and thermostat wiring. Once it's all connected, the installer fires it up and checks the flame, the airflow coming out of the supply vents, and the temperature rise across the furnace to confirm it's running the way it should. The last step is testing the safety controls, the ones that shut the furnace down if venting is blocked or if it overheats, since those are what keep the system safe through years of running.
