Furnace Repair - Tips To Consider

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Furnace Repair - Tips To Consider

• Keep Your Heating System in Top Shape!

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Synopsis

• Simple Furnace Repair Tasks You Can Do Yourself
• How to Maintain Your Air Quality During Winter
  Months
• The Importance of a Furnace Tune Up
• The Major Steps in a Proper Furnace Cleaning and
  Tune Up
• Why Pay Professionals to Clean Your Furnace Ducts
• Which is Best for Clogged Drains a HydroJet or
  Snake?
• Should You Buy an On Demand Water Heater for Your
  Home?
• Furnace Repair Tasks Best Left up to Professionals

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Simple Furnace Repair Tasks You Can Do Yourself

• Replace the Thermostat Battery
• Simply changing the batteries could be all it
  takes to get your heating system running properly
  once again and its something that you can do in
  minutes.
• If your home thermostat isnt functioning right
  it could be time to replace it. There are
  advanced thermostats available today designed to
  reduce heating costs and that offer additional
  benefits like wireless warnings. Look into one of
  these units if you are in need of one and talk
  with professionals about having them installed in
  your home.
• Look at the Breakers
• Your homes circuit breaker could be key to
  getting your furnace operational once again.
  Theres always a chance that the furnace could
  trip a breaker, and if it does it wont operate
  any longer at that point. Simply flipping the
  breaker switch could be all it takes to get your
  furnace up and running once again. Take a look at
  your breaker box for a switch thats in a
  different position than all the rest. Chances are
  good that it was tripped by something and needs
  to be flipped back for power to be restored once
  again.

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Simple Furnace Repair Tasks You Can Do Yourself

• If your furnace shuts off, take a minute to look
  at the breakers before you call in the
  professionals. Doing so could save you a lot of
  time and money in the process.
• Swap Filters
• While its rare, clogged filters can lead to
  furnace issues and they certainly reduce
  efficiency levels. Take some time to swap out air
  filters to keep that furnace running smoothly and
  to eliminate the possibility of these problems as
  well.
• Take a look at different filters when buying them
  as well. Some filters must be replaced much more
  regularly than others. If you have trouble
  remembering to change filters, or dont want to
  deal with the task regularly, it may be worth
  spending more to get a longer lasting filter to
  minimize the chore.

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How to Maintain Your Air Quality During Winter
Months

• Clean Registers and Ducts
• Your heating and cooling system relies on a
  series of registers, vents and ducts to move air
  around. Its important to make sure all of those
  things are kept nice and clean. While you can
  wash up the registers and vents around your home
  effectively, youll have to hire professionals to
  clean up the ducts themselves, but a complete
  cleaning only needs to be performed once every
  few years to keep ducts clear of dust and dirt.
• Swap out Furnace Filters Regularly
• Your furnace likely has a high quality filter in
  place designed to catch dust and debris as it
  passes through. Swap out old filters as they
  become dirty to trap as much dust and dirt as
  possible and to keep air moving through your
  heating system reliably.

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How to Maintain Your Air Quality During Winter
Months

• Dust Frequently
• Diligently dust off as many surfaces of your home
  as you can on a regular basis to minimize dust
  particles in your air. Take care to wipe off
  ceiling fans, shelves, and any other flat
  surfaces around your home, particularly those up
  high. Doing this on a regular basis will help
  remove dust from your house and improve your
  homes air quality.
• Install a Filtration System
• There are small and large filtration systems that
  you can get for single rooms or multiple rooms of
  your home. You can even have a large filtration
  system installed on your heating ducts themselves
  to really supercharge your ability to clean up
  the air in your home.
• Consider UV Systems
• The last thing that you can do to improve the air
  quality throughout your home is to add UV
  disinfecting systems at key points in your duct
  system. They rely on brilliant UV lights to kill
  of bacteria, viruses and germs that could build
  up over time and degrade the quality of your air.
  These systems arent cheap, but can help keep
  your home healthier over time.

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The Importance of a Furnace Tune Up

• Extend Furnace Life
• The furnace is one of the most expensive
  appliances in your home and one of the most
  important, especially if you live in the north.
  To save you money over time you want to extend
  the life of your furnace as much as possible.
  After all, the longer your furnace is running
  properly, the more money you are saving by
  avoiding paying for a new furnace. When you do
  finally replace your furnace, you will have had
  additional years to save up for that replacement
  cost.
• Reduce Future Expenses
• Replacing your furnace is a serious expense for
  sure, but chances are good youll need to replace
  just a major component or two long before the
  entire furnace. By applying regular maintenance
  procedures you can reduce the need to replace
  significant components on your furnace, which
  cuts ownership costs significantly.
• Improve Energy Efficiency Levels
• A home furnace system operates best when its
  professionally maintained. During regular
  maintenance dust and scale buildup are removed,
  the flame sensor and pilot timing are
  recalibrated, the heat exchanger and combustion
  chamber are cleaned up and the whole system is
  optimized to keep your furnace running in tip-top
  shape.

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The Major Steps in a Proper Furnace Cleaning and
Tune Up

• Clean up the Burners
• Many major furnace failures and problems are
  related to dirty or misaligned burners. Make sure
  the maintenance professionals that come to your
  home take the time to clean up the burners and to
  align them if they are out of position. Most
  experts will clean off burners using compressed
  air and a stiff bristle brush. Buildup can become
  quite thick, so it takes time to clear off
  burners properly.
• Clear Condensate Lines
• Another key area that professionals need to focus
  on is the condensate line for your furnace. This
  line can become clogged and cause malfunctions in
  furnaces, especially during very cold periods
  when the furnace runs constantly. Getting this
  line cleared out is an important step for
  technicians to take to keep the furnace operating
  properly. Often compressed air is used to clear
  out these lines, but there are other techniques
  available as well. Often furnaces that suffer
  from unexplained problems that persist after a
  tune up by technicians are suffering from clogged
  condensate lines.

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The Major Steps in a Proper Furnace Cleaning and
Tune Up

• Clear Blowers
• Furnace blowers are constantly moving air around,
  which is why they are often equipped with
  filters. Its important for blowers themselves to
  be cleaned out and prepared for smooth operation.
  They can become clogged or stop working properly
  over time, especially the fans themselves.
  Compressed air or a simple wipe down will remove
  dust buildup on blowers and get them running
  properly once again. If your blower begins to
  sound strange, its possible it just needs a
  thorough cleaning.
• Replace Filters
• Your system should have a minimum of one in-line
  filter and many have additional filters to care
  for as well. Its important that each one of
  these filters is replaced at the time of cleaning
  to keep them in good operating condition and to
  prevent things like air blockages from
  developing.

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Why Pay Professionals to Clean Your Furnace Ducts

• Keep in mind that removing debris from your
  furnace might not affect air quality, because
  most of the dust and grime sticks to the walls of
  your ducts and doesnt come out in the air. With
  that said, talk with professional cleaners about
  the benefits that you can expect and what will
  happen if you do have your ducts cleaned. By
  talking with professionals you can get an idea of
  the benefits of this type of services and it
  should help you decide if you want to pay for
  cleaning or not.

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Which is Best for Clogged Drains a HydroJet or
Snake?

• When to use a Snake
• A snake or plumbing auger is best used for milder
  clogs, or in weaker pipes that simply wont
  withstand a hydro jet cleaning. Thats because an
  auger is a gentler cleaning method that works
  quite well on most household blockages. A drain
  snake swivels and pushes its way through most
  clogs without an issue, and will create a pathway
  for water to flow through easily, but it wont
  remove the entire blockage in most instances.
  Instead it leaves behind debris around the edges,
  and new clogs will often form in the same
  location in weeks or months after.
• When to Make Use of Them
• Hydro jets are the heavy lifters of the
  unclogging world and will blast away dirt, grime,
  grease and nearly all debris in a pipe system.
  They leave behind no traces of a clog and are
  viewed as a more permanent de-clogging solution.
  Unfortunately, hydro jets are very powerful and
  can actually break fragile plumbing systems.
  Professional plumbers usually check a pipe system
  using a camera before making use of a hydro jet
  tool, to ensure that the pipes are in good shape
  and durable enough to withstand its forces.

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Should You Buy an On Demand Water Heater for Your
Home?

• Your best option is to sit down with a local
  plumber and to talk about your options and what
  the best approach is to convert your existing
  plumbing system to work with an on-demand water
  heater. Talk about whether you need multiple
  heaters around your property, talk about the cost
  involved to make the transition, and also discuss
  if there will be any extensive floor plan
  adjustments to fit the heaters around your home.

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Furnace Repair Tasks Best Left up to Professionals

• Pilot Light Failure
• If your furnace is suffering from a pilot light
  failure, it isnt going to light up and produce
  heat like its supposed to. Instead it could be
  leaking harmful gases into your home, and it
  certainly isnt helping your utility bill in the
  process. If you have a furnace that has this
  problem, dont try and relight the light
  yourself. Chances are good theres a reason that
  the light isnt working and its important to get
  professionals in to take a look at the furnace to
  find out what the problem is.
• Gas Leak or Carbon Monoxide Leak
• Whether you have gases leaking into your home, or
  your furnace is leaking out carbon monoxide, this
  is a very serious problem that you should never
  ever try to deal with on your own. These gases
  are dangerous and potentially explosive as well.
  Only trained professionals should be dealing with
  this type of risk. Working on your furnace in
  this condition could put your life in danger, and
  it could void your warranty or even your
  homeowners insurance. Keep this in mind before
  you try and fix a potentially dangerous issue,
  because its just not worth it.

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Furnace Repair Tasks Best Left up to Professionals

• Failed Blower
• Often when your blower stops functioning properly
  its because the belt that connects the motor and
  the blower is bad and has failed. This isnt a
  hugely complicated issue, but its still
  something thats best left up to professionals.
  They will open up the blower compartment and swap
  out the belt for you so that the blower can be
  made operational once again. This procedure wont
  take very long, but trying the project on your
  own could expose delicate parts to you and leaves
  the furnace open for damage. Be careful if you
  decide to try this repair on your own, because
  there are problems that can arise from an
  improper repair.
• Adjusting the Limit Switch
• If your furnace blower runs constantly and you
  dont have your thermostat to the Blower On
  position, you probably have a limit switch issue.
  The limit switch in your furnace is responsible
  for cycling your blower and its a delicate
  little instrument. Its vital that its adjusted
  carefully, which is why its best to leave to
  professionals, even if you can find information
  about how to do it yourself.

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The End

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