What Happens During Furnace Maintenance?

HVAC maintenance has grown prominent in the minds of homeowners over the years, and rightly so. Properly maintaining your system is the difference between burning money versus keeping an efficient unit. Here’s what you can expect during a routine maintenance visit and why it’s important.

Safety Checks

Furnaces are so common in our homes that most of us forget there are risks with running them. You see the occasional warning about carbon monoxide poisoning, but you seldom see that risk connected to your furnace. There’s also the occasional story about a gas leak that leads to a house fire or an explosion.

Fortunately, these kinds of incidents are relatively rare, so we easily forget about them. However, when we neglect to take care of mitigating these risks, that’s where you see them start to crop up.

Further, you want to make sure the safety systems built into your heating system are working properly. These might include your gas shut-off switch as well as the heat safety switches.

Your annual furnace maintenance appointment will include the necessary checks to ensure your system will be safe this winter as it runs. Your technician will check for carbon monoxide levels around the furnace while it’s running. They’ll also look for any signs of gas leaks and test each of the safety components so that you can resolve problems before they become catastrophic.

Deep Cleaning

As air moves through your heating system, it deposits small particles that slip through your air filter onto your heat exchanger and circulating fan. As these collect, it inhibits your furnace’s ability to transfer heat and restricts the system’s airflow.

Your technician will gently clean both of these areas during your annual maintenance appointment. Care must be given to ensure they don’t damage either component, which can happen just by using the wrong cleaning products. This task is a major part of keeping your furnace operating at peak efficiency.

Function Testing

The only way to know whether your system is working properly is to objectively test its performance. This means running a full cycle to ensure the thermostat is sending the signal and that all the components engage at the right time.

Additionally, you want to make sure that your system is producing the right amount of heat. This is called the temperature rise, or how much warmer it makes the air than the ambient room temperature.

Your technician will run your system through an entire heating cycle to ensure that it works properly. While it’s running, they’ll double-check your heat rise to ensure it’s optimal. If anything comes up, you can get the needed repairs done without relying on an emergency repair before jeopardizing your family’s safety.

Component Inspection

Beyond testing, some of your components need a visual inspection to ensure they’re operating safely. This is especially true for your heat exchanger, which may crack over time. Your circulating fan motor, burner, and igniter may all show visible signs of problems and will be inspected during routine maintenance.

Tightening and Balancing

Your system creates vibration as it runs, which loosens some components’ mounting screws and electrical connections. Loose mounting bolts and screws lead to additional movement while your system runs, causing excessive strain on those components. Loose electrical connections create additional electrical resistance, which increases heat in electrical wiring and components.

Your circulating fan must also maintain balance to prevent damage to the motor and spindle. Dust collecting on the fan wheel and loose mounting bolts may cause the fan to go out of balance. All of these connections are tightened during your maintenance visit, and your circulating fan will be balanced to reduce the strain put on your system.

Why Maintenance Matters

If all of that isn’t enough to convince you of how important furnace maintenance is, consider your system’s warranty. Manufacturers understand all of what is described above and recognize that without proper maintenance, your furnace will experience preventable repairs. To reduce the risk of these warranty claims, they often require regular maintenance as a term of the warranty.

Even if your unit is no longer under warranty, attending to these areas reduces your overall operating costs. Keeping your system running efficiently lowers your utility costs, reduces preventable repairs, and extends the lifespan of your appliance. There’s little you can do for your system that’s as reasonably priced as annual maintenance.

People throughout Cedarburg have trusted Hometown Heating & Air to keep their homes warm since 2016. Our NATE-certified technicians provide heating and air conditioning installation, maintenance, and repairs as well as indoor air quality solutions. Call to schedule your furnace maintenance appointment with one of our expert technicians today.

Are Electric Furnaces an Energy-Efficient Option?

In the quest for greater efficiency in your home, one important component to consider is the furnace. After all, during a Cedarburg winter, a furnace gets used extensively, resulting in significant energy usage. If you currently have a gas furnace, you may wonder if an electric furnace offers better efficiency and the possibility of a lower utility bill. By understanding how an electric furnace from [company_name] operates, you will be well-equipped to understand the nuances of energy-efficiency when it comes to furnaces.

Turning Fuel Into Energy

The efficiency of a gas furnace is rated with a measurement called the AFUE rating. AFUE standards for annual fuel utilization efficiency. This standard looks at how efficient a furnace is at turning the fuel it uses into useful energy. Specifically, the more heat that a furnace can create from a specific amount of energy, the higher its AFUE rating will be.

A common furnace of today will have an AFUE of around 80. High-efficiency furnaces range anywhere from 90 to 98, although the high end of this range can be quite expensive. However, electric furnaces from [company_name] beat every gas furnace in terms of efficiency since they have an equivalent AFUE rating of around 100%. This makes sense when you consider that a gas furnace has to turn its fuel into a flame, meaning that at least a small amount of the fuel that a gas furnace takes in is lost as light energy instead of being transformed into heat energy.

Not as Fast

Unfortunately, efficiency alone isn’t enough to grant you a lower utility bill, at least when it comes to furnaces. That’s because the fuel that is used by a gas furnace is utilized more effectively than in an electric furnace. In a gas furnace, the heat that is created is at a much higher temperature than in an electric furnace.

Therefore, even though some energy is inevitably lost in a gas furnace from [company_name], it only has to run for a short period of time to bring your home to the desired temperature. This means that a gas furnace is able to make up for any efficiency shortfalls by utilizing less fuel overall. On top of that, natural gas and fuel oil are much less expensive per unit than electricity, meaning that your utility bill will likely be less with a gas furnace even if it’s an older model with an efficiency below 80%.

Still Plenty of Perks

Although an electric furnace is more expensive to operate, there are still advantages to owning an electric furnace. For one, an electric furnace doesn’t bring with it any risk of carbon monoxide poisoning from natural gas. Although electricity can cause an electrical fire, a properly installed electric furnace is a very low-risk appliance.

Plus, electric furnaces are quieter because they don’t require a burner or a draft inducer to operate. Additionally, you can operate an electric furnace without a flue. If you don’t already have a flue installed, this can save you significant money on installation costs. Perhaps the best part of an electric furnace, though, is that its initial price is lower, making it more affordable if you need to replace your furnace but have a limited budget to do so.

An Even Better Option

If you don’t currently have gas service at your home and you need an efficient option to heat your home with electricity, a heat pump from [company_name] is the best way to go. Heat pumps don’t require any gas to operate because they extract heat from the outside air to heat your home. All that’s needed is a marginal amount of electricity to keep the extraction process going.

For the cold Wisconsin winters, your best bet is a geothermal heat pump that utilizes the consistent ground temperature to keep your home warm. However, even an air-source heat pump can be quite useful and still save a fair amount of energy compared to a conventional electric furnace. Therefore, even with only an electric supply, you have plenty of options to keep your home comfortable this winter.

Keeping You Warm on the Coldest Days

At [company_name], we understand just how cold the winters around here can get. That’s why we take pride in offering superb maintenance, repair, and installation services for heating systems of all types. We can also perform those same services for air conditioners so you can stay comfortable in the summer, as well. Our many years of exceptional service has resulted in an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau and countless five-star customer reviews. To learn more about your options for heating your home this winter, contact us at [company_name] today.