If you’ve enjoyed steady warmth and reliable performance from your gas furnace during the previous winters, you may start to think that the system is in excellent shape and that won’t change. But there are ways you can compromise your furnace through neglect and other simple mistakes—and they can lead to a broken-down heater or even one that’s developing safety hazards. We’re going to examine 4 ways that you might compromise your furnace this coming winter.
1) Allowing it to go without maintenance
This is often the first furnace task that people neglect. A regular fall inspection and tune-up from an HVAC professional is a necessity to ensure that a system works for as long as possible in peak condition. Missing even one annual maintenance visit allows age to get a hold on a furnace and lower its energy efficiency and life expectancy. It can also permit repair issues to escape detection.
2) Leaving the same filter in place all season
A maintenance technician changes the furnace’s filter for the start of the season, but you also need to change it at least once during the rest of the winter. A clogged filter not only threatens to lower a furnace’s efficiency, it can also cause damage from dust and dirt infiltration and make the furnace overheat. Ask your technician about the best schedule for regular furnace filter replacement.
3) Blocking vents
Moving around furniture and redecorating rooms can lead to accidentally blocking the vents from the ventilation system. This forces the furnace to labor harder than it should, and the increase in pressure within the ducts can create other kinds of damage. Do an inventory of the vents in your house to make sure that none of them are obstructed.
4) Delaying repairs
We can’t stress this enough: never allow a gas furnace to continue to run if you know there is something wrong with it. Shut off the heating system and notify our repair experts ASAP. We’ll have the furnace back to working again in no time, or we’ll help you arrange for a replacement.
Purl’s Sheet Metal & Air Conditioning has served Fresno, CA and the rest of the Central Valley since 1952.