Maintenance And Steps To Prepare Your Home's Furnace For Winter
Posted on: 4 December 2017
A new furnace installation in your home provides you with a well-maintained system that you can rely on to heat your home during the upcoming winter. However, just because your heating system is new does not mean you can skip on servicing it for the first few years. It is recommended to complete annual maintenance and a tune-up to your new furnace to make sure it continues to run as well as it did when it was first installed in your home. Here are some tips to help you complete some maintenance tasks and have your furnace professionally tuned up.
Tidy Up the Area
Before beginning the heating season, make sure the area surrounding the system is free of clutter. It can be easy for items to accumulate over the summer, so remove any items that are placed around the furnace and in front of any cold-air vents and heating ducts. Items placed in the way of your furnace's air flow can make the motor work harder to pull air and recycle it through your home. This can increase your home's heating and utility costs. Also, check and replace the filter.
Check and Clean the Interior
Within your new furnace are the burners where the heat is created to warm your home's air. Before the beginning of each new cold season, take off the front panel of your furnace to access the burners and the fan so you can vacuum out any dust and dirt that may have collected over the summer. But first, shut off the power to the furnace with its main switch or disconnect the power through the breaker. Attach a long-handled vacuum nozzle on your vacuum to reach into the furnace and clean off the burners to remove cobwebs and lint. Vacuum around the fan blades to clean them, as well. You can also use a damp rag to wipe off the blades to remove any stuck-on build-up.
Replace the cover on your furnace and switch the power back on so you can safely run the burners to check they are working properly. Turn your home's thermostat onto heat and increase the temperature to switch on the burners. Most newer furnaces have a viewing window on the furnace's front panel, so you can look through this window to check the condition of the flame. The blame should be blue in color and burning steadily. If the flame is yellow, orange, or flickering, there may be a problem in the burner combustion or soot has built up on the burners. Call your professional heating technician to have it checked and repaired.
Hire a Professional Tune-Up
After you have taken care of the basic maintenance on your furnace, it is important to hire a heating professional to check the safety and proper workings of your system. A tune-up should be completed at the beginning of the heating season each year and costs, on average, from $60 to $85.
During the tune-up your furnace technician will check for any gas leaks in your system, and check for carbon monoxide leaks, which are odorless and can go undetected and cause illness and death. Five-hundred people die and 15,000 people go to the emergency room each year from from carbon monoxide exposure. You can help prevent this with a carbon monoxide detector in your home, but having a professional check the furnace for any carbon monoxide leaks is also a good idea.
The heating professional will also make sure the thermostat is working, check the electrical components and wiring for proper function, oil the motor, check and clean the unit's heat exchanger, and check and clean the evaporator coil.
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