Is Annual Preventive Maintenance of Your
   Heating System Really Necessary?


It is safe to say that most heating systems are not operating at peak efficiency. That is not too surprising when you realize that in our area, a heating system runs about 1850 hours per year.

To put this "run time' in perspective, a car driven for 1850 hours at 55 miles per hour would travel over 101,750 miles. Not many cars put 101,750 miles on the odometer in a single year.

Even so, no one would consider such a journey without arranging for oil changes, lubrication, and routine maintenance to assure the efficiency, safety, and reliability of the vehicle.

Simply put, your heating system serves you many more hours each year than your car and like your car needs routine maintenance to operate efficiently, safely, and reliably throughout its design life.

Long before your heating system breaks down, it silently and unavoidably loses efficiency requiring more energy and more money to keep you comfortable. Some of the possible reasons contributing to inefficiency are:

• Inadequate air flow through the duct system.
• Dirty air filter.
• Improper burner adjustment.
• Restricted vent.
• Improper combustion air.
• Old, inefficient equipment.
• Improperly sized equipment.
• Improper refrigerant charge (heat pumps).
• Refrigerant restriction (heat pumps).
• Inadequate air flow through condenser coil (heat pumps).
• Mismatched split system equipment.
• The list goes on and on.

In addition to inefficiency, a 15 year old furnace is like a set of tires with 45,000 miles of wear. Tires become worn from constant grinding and flexing over all kinds of pavement and it's relatively easy to know when tires become dangerous and need replacing because they wear from the outside in.

Furnaces too, wear from expansion and contraction as the burners continually go off and on to provide the heat required. The resulting damage to a furnace's heat exchanger can be compared to bending a piece of metal back and forth until it breaks. But unlike your car tires you have no way to know how dangerous your furnace is becoming because it wears from the inside out.

A crack or hole in the heat exchanger of your furnace could allow deadly carbon monoxide gas to enter your living environment. Furnaces should be tested every year for signs of wear or damage and carbon monoxide leaks. Operating an older, untested furnace is as dangerous and life-threatening as taking your family out for a drive on a set of bald tires.

Click here for our Residential Home Heating Maintenance Plan.
Click here for our Commercial Heating Maintenance Plan.

Click here for Frequently Asked Questions about heating & AC!