Welcome to fall, the season when you need to rush around getting ready for a New England winter although you’d really rather just curl up in your favorite sweater with a hot drink! One of the most important things to do before winter is schedule heating maintenance, which has many benefits.
Once your maintenance has been performed by a qualified technician, you’ll enjoy higher efficiency, more cozy comfort throughout your home, and a dramatically decreased risk that you’ll have a heating breakdown during the winter or even require any sort of repairs. But the truly critical thing about heating maintenance is that it will keep you, your home, and your family safe. Here’s how.
Cleaning
Step one in the maintenance process for any sort of heating system is cleaning. There’s all kinds of dust in there! If that mess is allowed to remain, it will interfere with efficiency and can lead to increased wear and tear, but when it comes to your safety, the biggest risk of a dusty mess in your heating system is fire.
The dust can lie in a thick blanket over parts like the blower fan motor which generates a little bit of heat. Like insulation, that dusty blanket keeps that heat in, and it gets hotter and hotter. The temperature itself can catch the dust on fire, or the wiring in the motor can short out, fuse together, or cause sparks. This won’t be a risk when your heating system is nice and clean.
Lubrication
Moving parts within your heating system—like the aforementioned blower fan motor—can get very hot just from friction. They rub against one another at high speeds! Lubricant is required to keep things moving smoothly, and it needs to be reapplied each year during maintenance.
A Thorough Inspection
Every component needs to be looked at closely to make sure nothing is wrong. While major repair needs will be avoided thanks to your technician ensuring that worn parts are replaced and loose or misaligned parts are straightened out and secured tightly, there are a few specific things that really impact your safety.
The limit switch shuts the system down in case of a problem like overheating. The flame sensor makes sure gas won’t flow in a gas furnace unless there’s a flame to burn it, so you won’t end up with a gas leak. And a gas furnace’s heat exchanger poses a risk of carbon monoxide poisoning if it is cracked or damaged! Your technician will make sure everything is in tip-top condition.
Electrical Testing
Some furnaces are electric, using no gas, but even gas furnaces do have some electrical components. This means that any kind of furnace can cause electric shock or electrical fire if it’s poorly maintained. Your technician will test and recalibrate, measure electrical amperage flow, and check that every electrical connection is safe and secure.
Schedule your heater maintenance in Cambridge, MA to make sure you can keep your home safely cozy all winter long!
Reach out to Cooling Unlimited, Inc. to speak with qualified heating experts.
