You start thinking about drinking hot cocoa with your loved ones or breaking out the sweaters and thick blankets once the weather starts getting cold. But you likely don’t give your furnace too much thought unless it is not heating your home. Firing up your furnace without making sure it is ready can cause you to be left in the cold, facing an emergency. There are some easy checks that you can do to ensure that you and your family can remain cozy during extreme temperature drops.
Put in a New Filter
Your furnace accumulates dust and debris while it sits idle during the summer. The filter is not spared. The mesh is a vector for collecting all sorts of particles from the air, which will keep air from flowing when your system runs. Change the filter before turning on the heat for the first time.
Don’t Use Your Utility Room for Storage
Many people make the mistake of throwing belongings into their utility rooms to keep them from cluttering the rest of their homes. This is a horrible idea. When items are piled up next to the furnace, there is no room for the machinery to breathe, which can cause a fire. You should always have at least three feet of breathing room around your furnace.
Be Alert to Strange Sounds and Odors
Test your furnace to see how it runs before the cold really comes. Turn your thermostat to heat and set it to 75 degrees. While the heat is running, listen to see if you hear anything other than a gentle hum. Screeching, rattling, grinding, and banging sounds mean that the system is in trouble and needs help from an expert.
Watch out for strange odors as well. You will smell the dust burning away once the furnace first starts. But that smell should not continue. A rotten egg smell means you are in serious trouble because that means you have a gas leak.
Schedule Maintenance
It never hurts to have an HVAC professional come to clean and inspect your furnace. Your machinery can appear to run fine. But there may be problems lurking beneath the surface that you don’t know about until something serious happens. A licensed technician can uncover those problems and work with you to fix them so that your system runs smoothly.
It may feel like a real pain to spend time preparing your furnace for the winter. But it can keep you from facing headaches, such as costly emergency repairs and nights without heat. A furnace rarely fails at a convenient time. So, it is critical that you do everything that you can to stay ahead of the game so that you and your family can remain comfortable during the coldest nights of the year. If you have concerns or require furnace maintenance services, contact High 5 Plumbing, Heating, Cooling & Electric in Denver, CO.