3 Reasons Professional Heating Maintenance Is Important
It's important to keep up with furnace maintenance, especially if you have a gas furnace since a furnace that gets dirty or malfunctions might pose a safety hazard. A heating maintenance technician should check your furnace before winter starts just to make sure everything is okay and that the combustion area is clean. Here are three reasons why regular heating maintenance is so important.
1. Soot Buildup Can Cause Your Furnace To Shut Down
The last thing you want is for your furnace to shut down on a cold winter day, but if soot builds up in the combustion area, especially on the flame sensor, your furnace might shut down for safety reasons. The flame sensor has the job of detecting the flame when the burners kick on.
If no flame is detected, gas might be flowing in the furnace without a flame to burn it off. This would allow gas to accumulate to unsafe levels, so the furnace just shuts down. That could be a lot of aggravation to go through over a simple dirty part that would have been cleaned on a maintenance call.
2. A Bad Heat Exchanger May Leak Carbon Monoxide
One of the byproducts of combustion is carbon monoxide. The carbon monoxide usually poses no problem since it is pulled out of the furnace flue. However, if the heat exchanger cracks for some reason, the gas might leak out of the furnace and into your home. That's why it's important to have a carbon monoxide monitor near the furnace.
When the heating maintenance company makes an annual visit to service your furnace, they check the heat exchanger for signs of damage. They can also use a monitor to test your furnace for carbon monoxide levels to verify your furnace is safe. If a problem is found, it can be fixed so you won't have to deal with a safety issue later in the winter.
3. Leaking Ducts Make Your System Inefficient
If you have leaky ducts, you want to find them and have the leak plugged so you don't lose warm air to your attic. If warm air leaks out, your furnace has to run longer to reach the thermostat setting and that drives up your power bill. A quick check of the ducts can verify if you have a leak, and if so, repairs can be made so your furnace runs more efficiently.
The heating maintenance technician may also need to test and calibrate the thermostat to make sure it's set properly and that it turns the furnace on and off at the right time, so your furnace doesn't run longer than necessary and make your power bills high.
For more info, contact a company like Allied Mechanical & Electrical, Inc.