To anyone in the HVAC industry, the following information is absurdly obvious. But for someone not at all in the know, it was something of an eye-opener—a little something that served as a reminder that for every advantage, there’s a disadvantage, and for every pro, a very definite con. Now, as someone who’d never given more than 10 seconds of thought to HVAC at any point in my life, it was a bit of a revelation to learn that a “boiler” is, well, just a big furnace that produces steam and can heat water for bathing and washing dishes at the same time that it heats a physical space. I didn’t know that! I’d heard the term “boiler” of course, but I’d just associated the term with warehouses, factories and old ships. It actually never occurred to me that a very large percentage of American homes are heated using boilers, and that hot water makes its way through pipes to various parts of the structure being heated. This fundamental advantage—having a system that is able to heat space and water for bathing, laundry, dishes and the like—becomes a decided disadvantage if the system breaks. The homeowner is left without heat but also without hot water. If he or she has to suffer with a broken boiler for any length of time, the experience is likely to end up very, very uncomfortable. A furnace, by contrast, which works to heat air and distribute that air via a blower motor and a system of ducts, doesn’t heat water. This means that a homeowner who installs a furnace must also install a separate hot water heater. But if the furnace breaks, the owner still has access to warm and hot water—a major advantage on a frigid winter’s night!