I think that most people tend to forget about their heating systems. They sit in the basement (usually) where people don’t visit every day, and, as long as the furnace comes on and does its job…, well, life is good! Maybe you’re the do-it-yourself type and want to give that furnace a go yourself? Well here are some easy tips for keeping your furnace running better and longer.
1: Changing your furnace air filter
The furnace air filter, this is probably the easiest and most overlooked. Changing your furnace filter only takes about five minutes to do and will have the greatest impact for the time spent on this task. Hopefully you have a high efficiency filter, these are much larger than the standard ones (usually about 5-6” thick), if not, just plan to change your filter more often, once a month during the heating season would be good.
2: Visual inspection
Next, pop the front doors off and take a look under the hood. WHOA! HOLD ON! First, let’s shut off the power switch before we go any further. I don’t want to be remembered as that blogger involved in that big court case. Okay, that’s better. Look around, are there any water leaks? Are there any loose or poor electrical connections? Does anything look out of place?
3: Cleaning out the furnace
The blower compartment is where dust bunnies hide when you can’t see them in your living area. That’s right folks…, and you thought they just left on their own? Nope! Okay, so break out the vacuum and you’ll also need the dusting attachment and the crevice tool for this part. Vacuum out the entire compartment, making sure to use the dusting attachment for the end of the blower motor. That additional buildup blocks the air vents on the motor that are intended to keep the motor cool while running. Cool motors are happy motors!
4: Final step
Okay, almost there. Let’s put the doors back on, return the power switch to on, and turn the thermostat up until the furnace comes on. Are there any weird noises or vibrations? Hopefully everything was good. This is probably about as far as a homeowner can go without getting too deep. But if any issues were discovered through this process, remember that we offer professional furnace service.
