Houses are like cars in many ways (except if you’re lucky, you don’t spend nearly as much time in your car as you do your home). So, why is it that most people agree regular car maintenance is critical, whereas it still seems up for debate that your home also needs scheduled care from a professional? Like a car, home heating systems are composed of many intricate parts that all have to work together to deliver healthy, warm, efficient, and cost-effective heat. And, like an inspection and oil change for your car, a regular\u00a0inspection and\u00a0maintenance for your furnace can undoubtedly extend the life of your heating system, and the overall health of your home.<\/p>\n
Most people know what happens to a car without the routine recommended maintenance. But what happens to your home without an annual furnace maintenance?<\/p>\n
A neglected furnace or heating system could result in:<\/strong> Will these items listed above be addressed when you schedule a service call? Unfortunately, the answer is maybe. The service you receive can vary drastically depending on who you call and what you pay. One company can give your furnace or boiler a clean bill of health; whereas another company could come in a\u00a0week later and find that a multitude of things were not properly taken care of.<\/p>\n There seems to be no industry standard for what is included in an annual maintenance appointment. Many companies offer a “basic tune-up,” a “comprehensive maintenance,” or something by a different name or somewhere\u00a0in between. \u00a0Your best bet is to ask the technician what they will be doing exactly. He or she should be able to quickly give a\u00a0complete list of items they’ll be cleaning or checking; it\u00a0should look something like the list below.<\/p>\n This checklist is the minimum of what should be performed at a comprehensive service appointment. A good HVAC company will also\u00a0take note\u00a0of the home performance implications that arise. Technicians who are trained\u00a0to identify\u00a0home performance issues will recognize things like duct leakage, house leakage, excessive dust in the home or ducts, rodent issues, and other problems that won’t necessarily be resolved\u00a0by\u00a0routine furnace maintenance. Finding and addressing these\u00a0home performance gaps\u00a0will lead to a much more efficient, healthy, and warm home.<\/p>\n Basic Annual Furnace Maintenance:<\/strong><\/p>\n The homeowner could in fact do all of these things, but only if they know how to perform all or most of\u00a0the items on the list above.\u00a0I for one, don’t know anyone who isn’t an HVAC professional who can adequately execute all of these checks and cleanings. A heating professional should be able\u00a0to complete\u00a0and explain to you everything on the list above; which is what makes them worth the 100 to 150 bucks it costs to do it right!<\/p>\n Hopefully this post has helped to take some of the complexity and mystery out of the annual furnace maintenance. Keeping your annual appointment is all about preventative measures. Following recommended maintenance will likely keep you warm and healthy\u00a0longer, and keep unexpected furnace shut-downs at bay!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Most of us are\u00a0pinching pennies after the holidays. This means\u00a0that\u00a0home maintenance services that aren’t absolutely necessary often get pushed to the back burner. I’ve heard many folks (myself included!) wonder\u00a0things like “Is\u00a0annual maintenance\u00a0really necessary for my furnace,” or “couldn’t I do that myself and save some money?” These are great questions! Let’s demystify annual HVAC […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,269,209,156,224,230,91,94,188,240,100,113],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allergies","category-annual-maintenance","category-clean-home","category-comfort","category-diy","category-dust","category-energy-efficiency","category-energy-savings","category-furnaces","category-health","category-home-performance","category-indoor-air-quality"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.barronheating.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.barronheating.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.barronheating.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.barronheating.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.barronheating.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2378"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.barronheating.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7284,"href":"https:\/\/www.barronheating.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2378\/revisions\/7284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.barronheating.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.barronheating.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.barronheating.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n\n
Are all Annual\u00a0Maintenance calls performed equally?<\/h3>\n
What exactly needs to be done annually?<\/h3>\n
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Could the homeowner do all of\u00a0this herself?<\/h3>\n