When the temperature drops outside, the only thing worse than hearing your heating unit “blast” to life is the one time when it doesn’t turn on. Although heaters may seem to be like simple machines at first, they are, in fact, complicated machines that only specially trained technicians should work on.
But what can homeowners in NJ, PA, and DE do to help avoid heating issues this winter? Well, here are a few tips from Hutchinson Plumbing Heating Cooling—a go-to HVAC service company that serves Philadelphia and South Jersey—that you can consider:
1) Filters, Filters, Filters
Since heaters are complicated machines, there’s not much a homeowner can SAFELY do to help maintain a furnace and prevent issues. This is why regularly checking and changing your filters are so important. The most basic filter, a 1” thick piece of fiberglass, only works to prevent large objects from hitting the moving parts of your furnace. Even the smallest pieces of dust and dirt (over a long enough period of time) can cause your furnace to run less efficiently, less healthily, and cause certain parts of the furnace to fail prematurely. All for something that costs $5 or less at your local big box store.
2) Choose 1 Temperature, or Use a Programmable Thermostat
Think of a car – do you get better mileage driving in a city, or on the highway? In the city, you’re constantly starting and stopping, while on a highway, you start, drive for a long while, stop for a long while, start again. Similarly, your furnace wants to operate like a car driving on the highway, not in the city. In this way, pick a temperature and “stick to it.” Continually raising and lowering your thermostat’s temperature throughout the day forces your furnace to work harder and thus less efficiently than it should. If you want to regulate your home’s temperature throughout the day, then invest in a programmable thermostat that will achieve these variable temperatures without driving up the operational cost.
3) Avoid DIY HVAC projects
The Internet is an amazing thing. Start to type a few words into the search bar and before you can finish your sentence, the answer is waiting for you.
The internet is also a terrible thing. If you just type a few words into a search bar, then you “are an expert.”
I read it on the internet – it must be true! The internet is an amazing thing, full of some great ideas, but it’s also full of some terrible ideas. Notably, opening and closing certain vents in your home to help with seasonal airflow may be causing more harm than good. Before implementing any DIY HVAC projects consider consulting a professional, you may be about to cause more harm than good!
Hutchinson Plumbing Heating Cooling has been serving as an HVAC service company in NJ since 1948. You can always trust our courteous, professional, technicians to keep your home warm this winter. Call 866-953-8728 to schedule your appointment today!