Phase Seven - Reflecting on Research

1.      I plan to use more than just three sources in my FAR than I used in my blog project. I feel like more than three sources were necessary to cover every important aspect of my paper thoroughly and completely. I used about ten sources, including some not used in my blog project, but I felt that the blog sources were the ones that I had the best grasp of and were ultimately the most helpful in writing my paper. Following the procedures such as summarizing and the CRAAP analysis helped me to get a much better grasp on my sources and understanding them better led to a more successful writing of my paper.

2.      My knowledge of the topic has grown significantly since February in many ways. What I felt was the most significant though was that I learned so much more about the future of gas heating and how much it has grown in recent years, including the outlook of prices. Learning more about the future of something helped me to make recommendations accordingly, which was the entire overlying idea of the FAR. I learned that the cost of natural gas is much more likely to remain stable unlike gasoline used for fuel, which the prices are unstable and unpredictable. Overall, I learned a great deal about the future of gas heat, and from my research, it should still be the most popular form of heat in the United States in 5-10 more years.

3.      The analytical question(s) I used for writing my paper was: Why is gas heating the overall best method of heating to use for a home in Pennsylvania? This question focused more the reasons why gas heating is the best and less on just looking at all the heating systems like a typical “what” question would.

4.      I feel like researching with guidelines over a longer period of time has really helped me to get the most out of my research, the most out of my sources, and ultimately will help me produce a great paper. The way we analyzed each source in different ways really helped me personally get more important and quality information from the sources I found because I had a better idea of what I was looking for. Also, I really thought that writing about each one in this blog was a great idea because it gave me practice discussing the information from each source for when I write the actual paper, as I will be using the information gathered from these sources multiple times in my paper. I also thought that because it was spread out over a long period of time, I was able to write and research more efficiently and with the best quality because there was no rushing but more getting sources and analyzing them for what they are.

5.      If there was one thing I could have changed, it would have conducted interviews back when I was still in the research stage before I was actually writing the paper. Internet sources can be great and I found some excellent ones, but using the experts I deal with in my everyday life and job proved to be a great source of information and advice. This also ties into finding multiple types of sources. I used a lot of journal/magazine articles and looking back now, I wish I would have used more internet sources and, as I said, interviews to help me get a grasp on the topic. Honestly, I learned the most in the two interviews I conducted than I did probably in a lot of the other research. This is something that I will learn from for any future research reports I will need to write. 

Blog Phase 6: Bringing it all Together

Austin, Veronica (2011) Dear EarthTalk: Is it true that gas furnaces cost less to run and burn cleaner than their oil counterparts? if I make the switch, how long should I expect it to take for me to pay back my initial investment? and are there any greener options I should consider? Boston, MA. Westport, United States, Westport: Earth Action Network, Inc. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.hacc.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/911509340?accountid=11302

This article was originally a letter written to the editors of The Environmental Magazine by an owner of a large house in Boston. She was inquiring about gas heating and whether it actually was cheaper and more environmentally safe than oil heat. The editor responded in a few paragraphs and began by saying that in recent years, gas, be it propane or natural, has been cheaper than oil. This article noted that oil prices are very likely to remain higher than gas prices in the forseeable future and that most homes that still use oil heat are in the Northeastern US and were built back when oil was the cheapest way to heat a home. This article also states that even though gas puts off less harmful byproducts into the atmosphere than oil, there are alternative, more environmentally sound heating sources such as geothermal or solar.

This article was published by a professional environmental magazine, which makes pretty sound the fact that the editors are qualified to be writing about what they are writing about. The information found in this article is also very relative and helpful to my topic because it speaks directly about some of the qualities of gas and oil heat. This article was not biased towards any particular subject, but the evidence to support the main ideas was extremely strong nonetheless. For all the main ideas about prices, environmental issues, etc. there were several sentences of evidence to back up the ideas. Also, for being just a response to a question, I feel like it sounded incredibly professional and was well-written without spelling or grammar mistakes in any way. I would feel very comfortable citing this source in my paper because it has helpful, reliable, and relative information and it comes from a credible magazine source.

One thing that I learned from this article that I did not already know was that most of the oil heating systems that are still around are in the Northeastern Unites States. I knew that oil furnaces are nowadays few and far between, but this kind of came as a shock to me in a region where gas heating has become so prevelant. From my own experience, I understand that oil only accompases for 8% of heating across America in the current day. The HVAC distribution company that I work for no longer even sells oil furnaces unless it is a special order because there is no demand for them since more effeicient and clean sources of heat have been around. I found this source overall very interesting because it discussed a lot of ideas that I have not been  exposed to very much, including oil heating itself.

N,A. (2010). Help Choosing a Furnace for your Home. Perfect Air Heating and Air Conditioning. Retrieved April 5, 2013 from http://www.iwantperfectair.com/furnace-dupage/afue-furnaces-chicago.html

This article was all about the different kinds of gas furnaces. It discussed the difference between an 80 percent efficient and a 90 percent effiecient furnace and how each one could affect costs initially and in the long run. It also talked about furnaces that run in multiple stages. The higher number of stages the furnace has, ultimately it will have the chance to be more effiecient. Other mechanical designs that furnaces have were also discussed  such as venting systems and larger gas piping.  The article also talked about which kind of furnace would be best according to particular amount of time. For example, if you are building a home and plan on living there for a long time, which type of gas furnace should you put in it? The higher percentage of efficiency and the higher the amount of stages will ultimately lead to longevity (i.e. a 95% furnace with three stages would last longer AND be more efficient than a single-stage 80% furnace). This article even touched on installation processes and the typical warranty plans of gas furnaces.

As far as credibility, this article basically states only industry facts and has really no arguments or extensive topics that would require a very credible author. There was no bias present in this article, so it makes a good source strictly for numbers and facts. Those numbers and facts are directly related to my topic and will be extremely helpful when writing my FAR report. I also feel that these facts were explained and supported in an extremely effective way so that they were useful as well as understandable. This article is also fairly recent and has many links to other related articles and separate pages that could also be helpful. This article, as I said, is mostly basic industry facts about gas furnaces, and I would feel comfortable citing this source because it is current and has good, factual information that will be required when it comes time to write my paper.

I learned a lot from this article, but one thing that stuck out is that some furnaces have two pipes for airflow and some only have one. When a gas furnace operates, it needs to vent out air from the flames and also continue to bring fresh air in. This process of bringing in primary air can be done with or without a separate pipe. It could be done just by a shutter in the side of the furnace. Just days ago, we received an email at work saying that we would no longer be selling 80% efficient furnaces and would only have 90% on the market, so from this, I found out that 80% furnaces are on the phase-out. This personal experience could play into my reaserch and writing because I obviously would not recommend 80% furnaces if they are phasing out. I found this source to be very interesting because it talked a lot about facts and specific designs that I had not known much about up until this point. It’s always a plus to learn more about your topic and this source taught me a lot about furnace design that I did not already know.