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The holiday season is a time for joy, family gatherings, and cozy nights by the fire. But along with the celebrations come hidden dangers that could put your home, guests, and family at risk. From fire hazards to HVAC breakdowns, there are several threats to be aware of this time of year. Fortunately, most of these issues can be prevented with a little planning, preparation, and scheduling HVAC maintenance in Pittsburgh, PA. Here are 10 holiday hazards to watch out for.
Carbon Monoxide (CO) Awareness Month serves as a reminder of the invisible threat that carbon monoxide poses to homes and families. Known as the “silent killer,” CO is an odorless, colorless gas that can cause serious health problems or even death if undetected.
With heating season in full swing, it’s essential to take proactive measures to ensure your home’s safety—and one of the most effective steps is maintaining your gas furnace. Let’s explore the dangers of CO, how regular furnace maintenance can help, and other key precautions to keep your household safe. Contact us to learn more about carbon monoxide detection in Baldwin.
When is the best time of year to schedule a furnace tune-up? Well, many HVAC professionals, including our team, will tell you that it’s fall—so, right now! But something that’s much more important than the time of year you have this service done is how consistently you have it done. We do recommend fall because this is right before you will need your heater the most. If you commit to this service once a year though, you’ll be sure to keep your heater in good shape.
During your furnace maintenance tune-up, our professionals comprehensively clean the system, inspect all the components to ensure proper functionality, adjust parts as needed, and alert you to any repair needs that require attention. All of this benefits you in the following ways.
It’s hard to imagine needing your heating system on a regular basis quite yet, but that time will come soon enough. When it does, you want to ensure that it’s ready to perform as efficiently and effectively as possible, without fear of it breaking down suddenly on you.
Maintaining your furnace well before winter begins is a great idea, as it helps you fend off problems that can crop up and help prevent a scenario where you’ll be stuck with a malfunctioning heater in the middle of the season when you need it the most. Keep reading to learn more about the benefits of getting your furnace professionally maintained.
HVAC maintenance, also known as a tune-up, isn’t something we just throw out as a recommendation to make a few extra bucks. We get it, it’s an easy recommendation to pass over unless something is already seriously wrong with your air conditioner or heater. But whether it’s all of the sudden or not, if you can’t get any cooling on a sweltering day or heating on a freezing cold night, you’re going to wish there had been some way to prevent it.
Well, there is. As we progress toward the cooler months, we encourage you to get a heating tune-up on your schedule if you haven’t already. It really is one of the most important Pittsburgh furnace services you can have done, for a number of reasons that we’ll get to below.
Everyone in Oakdale knows that there are different types of maintenance tasks associated with keeping your automobile in tip top shape. Did you also know there are tasks that can be performed at various intervals to keep your home’s furnace in peak running condition?
For example, the most frequent maintenance task is checking the filters in your air handling unit. These are often called furnace filters but in reality, they serve the same function to filter air to and from your air conditioner, too. It might be easiest to just call them air filters. The frequency of replacing or cleaning air filters usually depends on the type of indoor environment you live in – like humidity levels, number of household pets or occupants, etc. In general, filter maintenance should occur every one to three months.
A less frequent maintenance task is cleaning the moving parts of the internal mechanism. You may only need to have your furnace cleaned every six months to a year, depending on its use. In some cases you can perform the cleaning yourself or it is included in an annual cleaning as part of a service agreement with a qualified heating and cooling contractor. A furnace can typically run at peak efficiency when it is cleaned on an annual basis.
You can also make it a regular habit of checking the motor bearings and fan belt, too. You can lubricate the bearings and tighten or replace the fan belt on a same schedule as cleaning the moving parts.
Other maintenance tasks related to your furnace, which may require longer interval times include ventilation system cleaning, or more commonly known as duct cleaning. Some homes don’t require this type of maintenance more than every five to ten years – perhaps longer. Unless there are unusually high levels of dust, allergens, or contaminants in the air, most ventilation systems can remain clean for several years.
Of course, you can turn all of your maintenance tasks over to a heating and cooling contractor like Boehmer Heating & Cooling Company – and have the most peace of mind.
There are many advantages to a properly operating furnace in your Gibsonia home. The most important are the safety and comfort of a home’s occupants and the cost of running the furnace. There are several things you can do to ensure the safe operation of your furnace.
Here is a checklist of ideas:
Externally vented natural gas furnaces, when properly designed and installed, will operate safely for years. But if you detect a problem, use the most common solution – contact a qualified heating professional to check out your furnace.
Particularly if you’ve just purchased a new furnace in McCandless, it’s probably not something you think about all that much. As long as it works when you need it to, that is. Unfortunately you usually find out that something is wrong with your furnace just when you need it most. However, there is a way to avoid that kind of problem, and many others, and that’s to have regular maintenance service performed on your furnace by a home heating professional every year.
One of the main reasons to have your furnace serviced is that it allows technicians to catch small problems before they become large ones. During a typical maintenance visit, a technician will examine all parts of your furnace to ensure that they are still in good working order. He’ll also thoroughly clean out the unit to make sure there are no buildups of debris that could cause problems or impede the furnace’s energy efficiency.
And if they do find something wrong like a part that’s beginning to wear out or something that just isn’t working properly, the technician can make the necessary repairs right away. You can get the problem taken care of ahead of time and you won’t have to worry about going without heat during the coldest part of the winter.
That’s not the only reason that annual maintenance is important and beneficial, however. It can also help you save money, both on your monthly energy bills and in the long term. That’s because annual maintenance tune ups keep your furnace functioning at peak efficiency levels longer than they would be able to otherwise.
A typical furnace will lose a small percentage of its energy efficiency every year, and while it won’t seem like a lot at first, that can really add up over the course of a couple of years. With regular maintenance, though, you can often maintain up to 95% of your furnace’s original efficiency for the life of the furnace.
Plus, when the proper maintenance and service is performed on a regular basis, your furnace will simply last longer.
Air filters are important pieces in your overall Oakmont home’s comfort system. They keep unwanted debris and sediment out of your indoor air and they help your system run smoothly for years to come. However, if you’re not careful, an air filter put in backwards can lead to quite a few problems with your heating and cooling system.
The most common problem you will face with a backwards facing filter is simple inefficiency. If your furnace is forced to blow air through the non-porous end of a filter, it will take more energy to do so. The blower will be overworked and you will pay more money for your heating. The same is doubly true for an air conditioner which has multiple filters in place to keep outdoor contaminants out of your indoor air.
Beyond the cost of improper filtering, you will likely suffer from a decrease in indoor air quality. The filter is designed to remove a lot of unwanted debris, but only when installed in a certain direction. If you set your filter up backwards, the normally collective end of the device will not face the air supply. In effect, your filter will help keep debris in the air.
This results in a clogged filter and improperly cleaned air when it reaches your lungs. If you have a home indoor air quality system it will help to supplement this problem for a while, but the clog will eventually become too much for your system.
There are two ways to avoid improper installation. First, you can have a professional install the system for you. Whenever you need a new filter ask someone to come and take care of it. When they do, though, pay close attention to how they set the filter and any other steps they take. By carefully watching you can ideally learn what it takes to do this step yourself and hopefully keep your system running smoothly for years to come.