Keep Your Home Warm & Comfortable

Keep your home warm and comfortable. It is not a luxury. It is a necessity! When you can’t keep your home warm and comfortable, everybody suffers. However, by performing routine maintenance on your furnace, you should be able to avoid costly problems and cold feet.

When maintaining or trouble-shooting your central heating system, one of the important components is the ductwork. Although you can’t see every part of the ductwork system, it is an integral part delivering warm hair through your home. If you know the top central heating problems, you’ll be in a perfect position to keep your house warm and comfortable.

1. Complete loss of heat – If you turn on your furnace and get absolutely no response from the heating system, the first thing to do is try to isolate the problem – figure out where the issue lies. If the heating system isn’t getting electrical power, you should probably call an electrician. Check the pilot light (for gas) is it lighting? If not, the issue lies with the gas supply, and you should call your gas company. Check the thermostat to make sure it’s set to “on” and that the temperature is set high enough to activate the furnace.
2. Partial loss of heat – If you notice that you are still getting heat, but the furnace does not seem to be operating at peak efficiency, you may have a few different issues going on. It’s possible that your ductwork system has problems with leaks or blockages.
3. Ductwork system – Because the ductwork system is so extensive throughout your home, there are many places where blockages can occur from rodents or insects. A ductwork blockage will generally require the service of an expert, who can diagnose and fix the issue. Ductwork leaks, resulting in heat escaping from the ducts and not expelling where you want it, also requires expert service to repair.
4. Malfunctioning thermostat – If you notice that the temperature of your home begins to have wild extremes, with high temperatures one minute and freezing temperatures soon after, the thermostat may be malfunctioning. This could cause the furnace to misread the actual temperature of your home and run when it shouldn’t or fail to run when it should. Call a professional to come out and recalibrate your thermostat. If your thermostat can’t be repaired, consider replacing it with a programmable thermostat that will help you reduce your heating bills.
5. Pilot light (gas furnaces) – For proper heating, the pilot light of your furnace must be lit continuously. If you check and you don’t see it lit, you will need to reignite it. If you see that the pilot light is on, check to assess its strength. The pilot light flame should be strong and blue – not yellow and weak. A weak pilot light could be a dangerous situation, resulting in high levels of carbon monoxide in your home, which could be fatal. Call a professional if you see indications of pilot light problems.

While you may not be able to resolve all these problems yourself, you can diagnose issues and get an expert out to perform repairs and keep your home warm and comfortable.