December 12

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Can You Have A Furnace In The Bedroom Closet?

By Robin Hatch

December 12, 2019


Bedrooms, especially in the wintertime, get extremely cold. The howling winds and whipping storms will keep even the most bundled-up person feeling cold. Because of the cold, people will want to put a furnace in or near their bedrooms. Can you have a furnace in the bedroom closet?

It’s not recommended to have a furnace in your bedroom closet due to the toxic fumes that a furnace emits. Keep the furnace as far away from the air you breathe as possible.

Furnaces are built not only to heat bedrooms but entire houses. To understand if you should put a furnace in your bedroom, it’s good to know how furnaces work to educate yourself better if placing one in your bedroom makes sense.

How A Furnace Works

Furnaces are typically gas or propane operated. Here is a fantastic explanation from “the comfort” of how furnaces operate.

A forced-air furnace heats your home through a heating cycle that looks like this:

  • Natural gas or propane is ignited on the burner.
  • The flames heat a metal heat exchanger and exhaust out of the flue.
  • The heat exchanger transfers its heat to the incoming air.
  • The furnace’s blower forces the heated air into the ductwork and distributes it throughout the home.
  • As the warm air fills each room, the colder, denser air is drawn back into the furnace via the return ducts, repeating the process.

There are many moving parts to a furnace. This image from ecomfort below is a great visual of how the process moves together.

How a Gas Furnace works
via ecomfort

The furnace has a control board inside it, which talks to the thermostats in each room, essentially controlling what room to blow heat into.

As the heat is generated, it filters out the cold air; the colder air is filtered back into the furnace, thus having a nice warm cozy room.

Can You Have a Furnace In a Bedroom Closet?

We strongly recommend not having a furnace in your bedroom closet.

The main component of the furnace, which you should be conscious of, is the burners. Heat is generated as gas or propane causing fire, heating up, and creating hot air.

Gas and propane are the most dangerous part of the furnace as it emits toxic fumes.

The dangers lie in the fumes emitted from gas and propane. Having these fumes emitted when sleeping could be highly dangerous and toxic.

If there’s a malfunction in the heating process by chance, the last thing you would want to lose is your clothes, jewelry, and all of your personal belongings.

Furnaces are best kept in storage rooms or even in a basement. If a malfunction happens, the combustion air can be detected by a carbon monoxide detector, away from personal belongings and sleep coves.

Can A Water Heater Be In A Bedroom Closet?

Like a furnace, a water heater is an excellent heat source from across the house.

To fully understand how a water heater works, watch this fantastic video here by the science channel:

In short, the water heater still uses a flame, which emits heat and toxins to provide a long-lasting and effective flame.

The water heated up by the flame is then passed through a tube to different areas of the house that give off heat.

A water heater requires a good amount of maintenance to ensure the water is cleaned as it’s passed back and forth between tubes.

Similar to why we don’t recommend having a furnace in your bedroom, we don’t recommend a water heater either. Keep your sleeping space as pure as possible as your body recovers from the hard day’s work.

Alternatives To A Furnace In The Bedroom Closet

Alternatives to heating a bedroom can be found in department stores or online. Electric heaters may be your best bet if you’re trying to save money and heat just one room.

Electric Heaters

Electric heaters are small, portable devices that generate heat through electricity. They emit warm air, similar to a furnace, but do not need gas, propane, or other gas. Plugin and you’re good!

We recommend this portable heater with an adjustable thermostat. The already-built and assembled portable heater generate enough power to warm an entire room.

Equipped with three settings, the heater can be used anywhere there’s a power outlet. Built-in safety features come standard, if it begins to overheat, it will shut off or cool down automatically.

It also has a built-in tip-over feature. The thermostat will automatically shut off when knocked over ( by a toddler or mistake).

The heater comes standard with a controller to adjust from the comfort of your couch.

For a more traditional look, especially in a showcase room such as a living room or hangout room, this fireplace heater looks excellent against the main wall.

fireplace heater

The fireplace heater is exactly what it looks like. However, it’s heated by electricity. Its front-facing case has red embers that generate a fireplace feel but emit electric heat out the bottom.

The only assembly that needs to construct the fireplace space heater is to attach the four legs. Everything else is already built and ready to go.

Like the Trustech heater above, it has a knock-over feature, crucial if you have children consistently running around. If accidentally knocked over, it will automatically power down, saving both your floors and children from any or possible harm.

Controlled by a dial knob, this portable fireplace space heater is an excellent addition for homes that want fireplace heat but don’t want to deal with fireplace maintenance.

Each of these space heaters is a great addition to rooms that don’t want to either pay the high bills for gas or propane or that want to add more heat power to space.

Conclusion

We do not recommend you put a furnace in your bedroom due to the toxic fumes that could be present in your bedroom. We like to have the bedroom be a place of comfort and peace.

A furnace is loud and requires ample precious space for operation – space that could be used for closets and storage. This is also the case if you want to store a mini-fridge in your bedroom.

If you’re looking for a single-room or multi-room solution, we recommend the space heater to efficiently and effectively heat your room.

We’ve compiled a complete list of frequently asked bedroom questions for new and experienced homeowners.

Our team of experts answers these questions to help assist you through DIY projects and home repairs.

Robin Hatch

About the author

For over a decade, Robin has been a real estate agent, interior design specialist, and mother. Through her trials and tribulations, she wanted to create the perfect website to help you save money and make your home look beautiful.

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