Did you know that one of the most important things you can do for the safety of your family and home is to get your furnace checked out and maintained by a professional every year? This might seem far-fetched to you, but furnace maintenance can keep your furnace from leaking carbon monoxide. This very dangerous compound can make your family ill, and it can even cause death.

Here are the facts that you need to know:

1. Carbon Monoxide Causes Death

Carbon Monoxide (CO) kills, on average, 1,500 people per year in the United States, but it can make many more people sick. It is, in fact, the leading cause of poisoning deaths in the country, and children, pregnant women and their unborn babies, anemic people, and people with lung or heart conditions are particularly susceptible.

When CO gets into your air, it starts entering your blood stream and replacing the oxygen there, which can cause flu-like symptoms including fatigue, weakness, vomiting, trouble breathing, heart palpitations, and even gastrointestinal problems. When people are exposed to high levels of CO, they can pass out before they even have symptoms.

Sometimes, though, insidious but slow CO leaks can poison an environment so that people experience chronic symptoms that worsen over time. One thing that can cause problems like this is an oil-burning furnace that isn’t working properly. This type of problem can go unnoticed or misdiagnosed until it’s too late to reverse some of the effects of the CO poisoning.

2. Protect Yourself and Your Family

One of the most important things that you can do to protect yourself and your family is to install CO detectors in your home. These detectors should be battery operated so that they’ll work even when the power is out, and they should be installed in all the central areas of your home and nearby to the areas where your family sleeps. These detectors can show the levels of CO in your home, and they can beep like a fire alarm when levels reach a dangerous high.

Installing detectors protects you by warning you when there is too much CO in your home, but the simplest way to prevent your home from being poisoned is to have your furnace – and other oil or gas burning appliances – services on a regular basis. Although things like gas stoves and water heaters can leak CO, furnaces are a very common way for the contaminant to get into the air.

If your furnace vents to the outside of your home, be sure that the vent isn’t covered by leaves or snow, since backing up this vent can release CO into your home. Also, call a professional at least once a year to perform basic furnace maintenance on your appliance. Not only will this keep your family from suffering the effects of carbon monoxide, but it will also save you money by making sure your furnace doesn’t get to the point where it needs major repairs and by making your furnace run more efficiently all winter.

 

These days, everyone’s trying to save some cash, and one great way to put money back in your pocket every month – especially during the winter – is to invest in an energy efficient furnace. Most furnaces last for about twenty-five years, but even if your furnace is only ten or fifteen years old, the models that are on the market today can probably far outshine it in terms of energy efficiency.

However, there are so many Energy Star rated models out there that you might have trouble choosing the right energy efficient furnace for you. There are lots of things to consider when you’re making this decision, including the size of the furnace and the actual efficiency rating it gets. Start narrowing down your choices by size, and then figure out which energy efficient model is right for you.

Furnace Sizing

Obviously the large a furnace is, the more it will cost on a monthly basis to operate. Also, larger furnaces will cost more up front, and they may be slightly more expensive to install. If you’re talking to an HVAC contractor to figure out what furnace you should get, be sure that the person performs a load calculation to determine what size furnace you need.

A load calculation should take into account things like the size of your home, how well insulated your walls and roof are, the number and size of windows and the rooms in your home, and other factors. This information will let you know what size furnace you need for your home, which is important because if the furnace you buy is too large, it will frequently switch on and off and will be generally less efficient and more expensive.

Also, be sure that you don’t assume when replacing your furnace that you should get whatever size the old furnace was. The furnace that is coming out is, for one thing, less efficient than the new model you’re about to buy, and it may have been incorrectly sized in the first place.

Furnace Efficiency

Choosing how efficient you want your furnace to be is a different matter altogether. While furnace sizing is dependent on a number of objective calculations, the efficiency of your furnace will depend largely on what you can afford and what you prefer. You should always shoot for a furnace that is at least 80% efficient because otherwise you’ll be paying a lot more for your energy than you should.

Beyond this, though, take into account some numbers. Any furnace that is more than 80% efficient is going to start getting pretty expensive. Most of the time, these furnaces can make up for the extra cost, but you’ll want to ballpark estimate how much money the furnace will save you each year to figure out how long it will be before the furnace pays for itself.

If, for instance, you invest in a great furnace that will pay for itself within five years, that’s probably a good investment. If, however, your furnace won’t make up for its cost for ten years, and you’re planning on moving before then, it might not be such a good idea. On the other hand, you may want to consider the problem from an ethical standpoint; if you believe in doing all you can to reduce your carbon footprint, you should buy the highest-efficiency furnace possible.

Your furnace is what keeps your home comfortable all year long, so knowing a little bit about furnace maintenance is important for any homeowner. If you’re unsure what it takes to maintain your furnace properly, read on for a bit of advice.

First off, if you’re having trouble with your furnace, be sure that the whole system is turned on and that your circuit breaker is set properly. You would hate to call a repairman to your home only to find that the fix was as simple as flipping a breaker switch! Also, be sure that your furnace is properly plugged in; if the furnace still won’t turn on, try tripping and resetting all the breakers attached to it.

If your furnace keeps blowing fuses or tripping circuits, you should probably not attempt to fix the problem yourself, as it’s probably an electrical issue that will need a professional touch. You should also never attempt to fix anything if you smell gas in your home; if this is the case, simply get out and call the fire department and your local gas company.

If there doesn’t seem to be a major problem with your furnace but you still can’t get it to work correctly, you may need to try calibrating your thermostat. Many people make unnecessary furnace maintenance appointments because their thermostats are not working properly. If you’re having problems with temperature control in your home, first check that your thermostat isn’t improperly influenced by outside temperature by drafts or holes in the wall, and then tape a mercury thermometer a few inches away from your thermostat, being sure that it isn’t touching the wall by putting it on a piece of paper towel.

If your thermostat and thermometer are more than one degree off, try cleaning your thermostat by taking off the faceplate and blowing away dust. You can clean the contact points or coils on the piece with a soft brush or a new dollar bill. Check that the thermostat’s screws are all tight, especially if it works with a mercury thermometer that may not be completely straight. After you’ve done this, check your thermostat again.

If the temperature is back on track with the actual temperature, all you need to do is wait to see if your furnace is actually functioning properly. Otherwise, you may need to replace your entire thermostat, which is a much more complicated process.

Obviously if your thermostat and furnace aren’t synching up for whatever reason, you need to work on your furnace a bit. However, it’s also important that you bring in a professional to perform yearly furnace maintenance in your home, since you can spend a lot of money on repairs and extra electrical bills if your furnace isn’t properly cleaned and lubricated at the beginning of every heating season.

If you want to save a little money on furnace maintenance, consider calling in the professionals a little early. Try having your yearly maintenance done in the middle of summer well before most people are thinking of calling. This way, you’ll have an easy time getting an appointment, and you may just get a discount, as well.