Most of us never really think about getting the furnace serviced. After all, when your home is warm and it seems to be working properly most people think it’s good to go. But consider if that were your car and you didn’t change the oil every so often? It’s not quite the same but even when it’s running and doing it’s good we can still make it better and help add to the life of the furnace by getting it serviced by professionals each year. And if you’re in the Michigan area then your furnace is something that you’ll want to work properly.
Does Your Furnace Need Maintenance Every Winter?
When your furnace isn’t working properly and it’s cold outside chances are you’re going to know it. Getting a service tech out to fix it then can sometimes be difficult and costly. Usually when you need the service tech to come out and repair the unit the repair could have been avoided by getting the unit serviced initially in Winter.
A good service technician will look over your unit while servicing it. They’ll check the interior parts of the unit that you (as a consumer) may not be able to see. They may notice things like excessive dirt and debris built up on the evaporator coil or the condenser coil. Which is a sign that the filter needed changing on the ac or furnace.
Upon a visual inspection of the interior of the unit he may notice wiring that is damaged by rodents or insects building in the unit like ants or spider webs. All of which needs to be removed. A single insect crawling in the wrong spot at the wrong time can cause your entire unit to fail. See the definition of a computer bug and how it started.
Should You Service the Furnace Yourself?
A lot of do-it-yourselfers want to do things like service work on the furnace themselves but unless you’re a trained technician it likely won’t help you much. Top begin with you won’t have the tools that most technicians will have. And the second is that you could actually die if you’re not certain of what you’re doing. The interior of a unit can have high voltage and explosive gases that can harm you. Doing this yourself is dangerous, so please don’t.
The trained technician may check all of the following items when servicing your unit:
- The amount of freon in the system if the system is a heat pump (not common too common in Michigan)
- The power consumption of internal components. Higher energy consumption may indicate a problem with the component such as bearings starting to fail or voltage problems.
- Good connections of wires and free of debris.
- Airflow tests and damper restriction tests.
- Many other visual inspections
These are just some of the items that a technician is looking for. The technician may find something is starting to fail and take steps to prevent it. Such as a failing bearing in a fan motor can sometimes be greased and oiled to work properly again.
By getting regular service on your unit you can avoid some of the more costly repairs that sometimes happen with your furnace. Be sure to get your furnace serviced today if you haven’t had it serviced this year. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did on those cold Michigan nights.
