how do furnaces work? Solution Furnaces work by burning fuel (like oil or natural gas). When these things burn, they form hot gases that are sent through curving metal tubes called \'heat exchangers.\' The heat exchangers are inside of the air ducts in your house, so the air in the ducts gets warmed up by the hot metal pipes. Then they use fans to move the warm air out of the ducts and new air in. Since the potentially toxic gases from burning the fuel stay inside the heat exchanger tubes and the air in your house stays outside of the tubes, the air in your house can\'t become poisoned..