Every safety “expert,” HVAC contractor, and even your
grandmother advise you to have your furnace checked every year by “somebody who
knows what he’s doing.” Is that really necessary? Why would anybody want to
spend the money to have a professional do that? There’s at least one good
reason: do it wrong and it could kill you.
There is one task that you can do: change the filter. A
fiberglass filter is a few bucks at the hardware store. Some filters can simply
be removed and washed. This is something you should do at least monthly during
the heating season.
Beyond that, you are dealing with carbon monoxide (CO). A
furnace that is “out of tune” can be sending CO to your living space at a time
when windows and doors are seldom opened.
You need a professional examination of your furnace by
Glenview Furnace Repair. That’s true. Your equipment manufacturer may “suggest”
that you do so to protect your warranty. That’s probably not true. We do many
things for preventive maintenance. We have our oil changed. We see our dentists
and doctors periodically. There may be nothing wrong—it’s just good business.
With a furnace, however, it is a guarantee of personal safety. When they’re
new, a two-year cycle is OK. Eventually, you should have it done annually. Taking
a contract to have your equipment surveyed annually is a wise investment in
safety and efficiency.
Just what happens with a furnace “tune up?” To begin with,
there is no industry standard to tell you what you should check, and if you
compare company to company, you’re certain to detect differences. We can tell
you for sure that Mahoney Plumbing and Glenview Furnace Repair do (at the
minimum) these things during an inspection:
We check the venting system. Is it blocked? Does it leak? We
have instruments that can measure the amount of carbon monoxide and tell
whether it’s all being evacuated or whether some can end up in the house.
We check every fitting—every connection to and within the
furnace itself. We also ensure that what must be vented outside is, indeed,
vented outside.
When a furnace manufacturer develops a heating system, it
does so with specifications for combustion gasses—essentially, the mixture with
air. Over time, and given piping deterioration, those combustion gasses change.
We will ensure that the combustion gasses conform to the mixture specifications
of the equipment manufacturer.
Dust is your enemy. Did you know it is combustible? We’re
going to clean the dust out. Could you do that with a vacuum cleaner? Yes. Will
you? Our experience indicates that people don’t. Constricted fresh air intakes
and louvers become plugged with dust. That changes the air/gas mixture. See the
paragraph above.
We’ll check to see if the blower “whistles.” It’s an
annoying little noise, and eventually you don’t hear it—it moves into the
background as “white noise.” That’s because a blower access door doesn’t have a
tight seal. We’re going to fix that.
We’ll do a couple other things for the blower, while we’re
at it. The blower wheel must be removed to clear any debris and be cleaned.
We’re going to check the power draw with what the manufacturer specified.
The fire is in the furnace box. It interacts with a heat
exchanger. That heat exchanger rusts and corrodes. We’ll check that, and, if
necessary, we’ll replace it.
Buried in the firebox is a device called a flame sensor. It
is electrical. All burners need to be checked for ignition, adequate flame, and
a working flame sensor.
There are many kinds of furnace—hot water, gas, electric.
Moisture condenses inside a furnace just as it does on your iced tea during the
summertime. Some furnaces, then, need to be developed with drain mechanisms.
That means hoses, leakage, and blockage. We’ll check all that.
Furnaces are wired for electricity. Sometimes there is
corrosion (it happens when copper meets moisture). We’ll fix it.
If necessary, we’ll do static air pressure checks, gas
pressure tests, and measurements of temperature rise.
Finally, we’ll change your filters. You should do that more
frequently. We’ll show you how.
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