As the summer months draw to a close, our attention begins to fall, the arrival of colder weather and preparing ourselves and our homes for the fall and winter months. Before too long, it will be time to reach for the thermostat to get more heat, and this is when we all rely on our furnace to keep us warm. But, many people take the furnace for granted, they don’t carry out any maintenance at all, and then they seem surprised when their furnace doesn’t work as expected. A furnace tune up is vital; it will make the heating system more effective, improve energy efficiency for lower bills, and it will make the furnace safer for your family. Let’s take a closer look at why it’s important to get a furnace tune up to get ready for fall and beyond.
Hiring a Professional HVAC Company
The first thing to mention is that a furnace tune up is not a suitable task for a dedicated DIY amateur. Investing time and money into improving DIY skills is admirable, and these skills can be used to save money in many areas in the home. But, when you are dealing with a furnace, this is very specialized work, and making mistakes is dangerous for the entire home. Unless you have had formal training in working on a furnace, it’s a better idea to hire a local certified HVAC professional to tune up your furnace for you instead. This will ensure that the work is carried out to a high standard, the efficiency will be improved, and your furnace will be safer to use.
3 Reasons for an Early Furnace Tune Up
The furnace should get a tune up annually before the heating season commences. There are two good reasons to get your furnace inspected and maintained earlier rather than waiting until the weather gets colder. Firstly, if the weather is cold outside and your furnace is turned off for a tune up, your home will lack heating until the heating system is turned back on. Secondly, when the weather gets colder, furnaces that have not been well maintained will fail, and HVAC technicians will be very busy. This could make it harder to schedule a furnace tune up for your home. Here are three reasons why you need a furnace tune up before the colder weather arrives.
- Keeping Your Family Safe
Safety should always be the number one priority in any home, and the furnace is no exception. As you furnace ages, the chances of cracks appearing in the surface of your heat exchanger will increase. These cracks can be very small and hard to find because they shrink and expand as the furnace heats up and cools down. The heat exchanger contains deadly carbon monoxide that’s impossible to detect with your regular sense of sight and smell. Carbon monoxide poisoning kills many people each year, and this is why it’s so important to install an appropriate detector at least 15 feet away from your furnace. The carbon monoxide detector should be checked every six months to ensure that it’s working well. An annual inspection for your furnace is essential to make sure that any cracks from the heat exchanger are not releasing carbon monoxide into your home. But, there are other potential problems; if a heat exchanger has cracks that become larger, this can lead to a fire and smoke in your home. If you want to be safer during the heating season, get a furnace tune up early.
- Saving Money
After installation, every furnace loses a little of that vital efficiency for every year of operation. A furnace the receives sporadic or even no maintenance will lose that efficiency at a far faster rate compared to a well maintained system. A well maintained furnace will cost a lot less to run without compromising on heating performance. As an added bonus, when an HVAC technician inspects your furnace, they may find smaller issues that need to be fixed. This will allow you to fix a smaller issue before it develops into a larger problem that could be more expensive to fix later on. The HVAC technician will also be able to advise you on the overall health of your furnace, and when you can expect to replace it in the future for even better performance and efficiency.
- Improving and Maintaining Airflow
A modern HVAC system relies on an adequate amount of airflow to deliver the treated air evenly throughout the entire home. This requires a correct volume of air pressure, and this is the job of the air handler. This component handles air for the air conditioning and heating system, and checking it is an important part of a furnace tune up. The air handler must be in good working order for the colder weather, or you may experience uneven heating in your home, and if it fails, it can be expensive to repair or replace. If you purchased your furnace recently, the air handler might still be covered under warranty, and regular maintenance may even be a requirement of the warranty. So, if you want to avoid an expensive repair or replacement, it makes good sense to get an annual furnace tune up in the fall.
The Importance of Furnace Maintenance
Sadly, many homeowners don’t have regular annual maintenance carried out on their furnace. The furnace is left alone throughout the summer, and then it’s turned back on and expected to work without any attention at all. An HVAC system is comprised of a number of different electrical, electronic, and mechanical components. Some of these are moving parts, and this is a complex system that needs regular attention. If you think about your car, it’s unlikely that you would drive it around for a few years without getting it checked out and maintained by a trained mechanic. After all, an HVAC system represents a significant investment in your home comfort, and protecting that investment should be a priority. When an HVAC system is well maintained, it will work more efficiently and last longer, which means you can replace it later rather than earlier. This can save a significant amount of money, but it will also make your HVAC system safer to use.