Okay, it was still in the 90s last week… so why, exactly, are we talking about heating?
Because preparing for the heating season is the best way to ensure you get through it as comfortably as possible, without any costly surprises from your furnace or heating system.
One of the best things you can do for both your home and budget is to ensure your heater receives proper maintenance. Keep reading to see why it’s so important for the health of your system and for your comfort.
The short answer to this is, “no.” No matter what type of thermostat you have and how professionally installed it is, it cannot directly prevent furnace problems. What the right thermostat can do, however, is help you use your furnace more efficiently, preventing high energy costs—which is just as important!
The quality of your thermostat and how you use it plays a huge role in saving energy. This is true not only now, in the winter time, but also when temperatures warm up in the summer. Read on to learn more about the relationship between your heating, and cooling, system and the thermostat that contols it, while learning what your thermostat options are, should you decide to upgrade.
You may have read in one of our other blog posts that we recommend changing your air filter every 1-3 months. We aren’t just saying this because it’s a nice thing to do—it will actually help you get the most effective and efficient use out of your heating and cooling systems as possible. And consider how much we use either one of these HVAC systems, chances are that you’d like to do anything you can to save money when you use them, and prevent repairs.
One way to do this is by performing one small maintenance task—among the only tasks we actually suggest homeowners do on their own—change that air filter! It’s easy to underestimate how powerful and important this HVAC component is, but we assure it that it has a lot of power. It protects the HVAC system itself, although there’s a common misconception that it’s there to protect your indoor air quality. Read on to learn more!
How do you prepare your heating and cooling systems for their respective seasons? Without argument, the best way to do this is by scheduling routine system maintenance. Maintenance tune-ups give our pros the chance to fully inspect your system, making any adjustments needed, cleaning the unit, and alerting you to any repair needs that exist. The best time to have this done is typically in the fall for your heater and in the spring for your air conditioner—but it’s actually more important that you have in done regularly, no matter the time of year.
HVAC maintenance is oftentimes forgotten, or at least, not prioritized by homeowners. We encourage you to not only schedule this service annually but to enroll in a maintenance program.
The short answer to this is “yes!” But there are definitely some factors to consider, which we’ll get to below.
We know, the typical place you’ll find a furnace in any home is the basement. But, not all homes have basements. These homes typically have floor furnaces placed in a closet or in the garage area. This is fine, except that it takes up a lot of usable space.
Therefore, attic furnaces have started gaining more popularity. Whether it’s a good idea for your home or not will depend on a number of factors, which we invite you to consider.
We may not get the frigid temperatures here in Lawrenceville that other parts of the country gets, but given how hot and muggy our summers get, our winters can certainly seem pretty chilly! As a result, we’re always grateful for the use of effective and efficient heating systems. But is yours working as efficiently as it could be?
The first step in ensuring that it is, in fact, performing efficiently is scheduling maintenance. If you haven’t already done so, now is the time! We advise that you have this service done by a professional Lawrenceville, GA HVAC contractor once a year for your heater. We typically recommend this service be done in the fall, before you need the system the most, but that matters less than having it done consistently. Maintenance isn’t the only way to improve the efficiency of your heater, though! Keep reading for some more tips.
Here’s what would happen in a perfect world. You’d turn on your furnace, and a few minutes later you’d hear the familiar whirring of the fan within the system. The reason it takes a few minutes is because the heat exchangers actually have to heat up from the burners, and the fan won’t start going until that happens. Once you hear that whirring, though, you’re satisfied knowing that comfortable warmth is about to come flowing into your home through the vents.
Other than this familiar noise, you shouldn’t expect to hear much else from your furnace or heating system. But what if you do? What if you hear strange or very loud noises coming from the system itself, its ductwork, or the vents in your home? Well, then it’s about time to call in our pros for furnace repair in Lawrenceville. In the meantime, we’ve offered some insight below into what may be going on when you hear the particular noises we’re about to name.
With winter almost upon us, right now is not the most fun time to be shopping for a new heater. Still though, here you are. You probably wouldn’t be reading this post if you weren’t already in need of a new heating system. And you’re probably pretty tempted to just go run out and buy the biggest one you can afford.
But this would be a mistake. There are a number of factors to consider when buying a new heater, such as its energy rating, whether it would be most efficient to get the same type of heating system you’ve always had, and yes that’s right—size. It matters a lot more than you may think.
Our short response to this is going to be, “tune-ups are vital to ensuring that your gas furnace doesn’t become dangerous.” Keep reading to learn more.
Truth be told, maintenance tune-ups are one of the most important furnace services in Lawrenceville you can get. Now, if a gas furnace posed a health threat to your home in general, they wouldn’t be installed in so many throughout the country. And they are the most popular type of heating system. You can rest assured that current standards for gas-powered furnace manufacturers place an emphasis on maintaining safe operation. They’re designed with a number of safeguards in place, like a limit switch that prevents a furnace from overheating.
But no piece of equipment or appliance that is powered by natural gas can ever be 100% problem-proof. And although you shouldn’t constantly worry about using your gas furnace during the winter, you should take the appropriate measures each fall to keep up your system’s safety record!
It may see bizarre to already be thinking about heaters, but the fact is that our winters can sneak up on us, and when they do hit, we’re always grateful for a fully functional and efficient heating system in Lawrenceville. We still have a couple months to go before temperatures make a noticeable decrease, but it’s still a good idea to start planning for heating maintenance, now.
There’s one system in particular where maintenance is especially important (although we recommend annual maintenance for all heater types) and that is the furnace. It’s never a bad idea to have maintenance done as early in the season as possible, even if it’s still technically summer. Better to be safe than sorry, right?
