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Although LA weather isn’t particularly notorious during the winter season, with no ice or snow to worry about, folks still need to be taking care of their furnaces while keeping air quality optimal in their homes; it does get cold enough to make you want to cozy up in the living room as your heating appliance does a good job of keeping the house nice and warm. Be it central heating, a furnace or wall heater, you don’t want to be sitting in a cold house just wishing you had gotten your heating appliance looked at earlier.

Why You Need a Furnace Tune-up

Furnaces, just like other home appliances, need to be serviced and maintained at fixed intervals in order to ensure smooth operation while keeping air quality clean as well. Rising heating bills is a pinch just about everybody has felt. It really pays in the long run to cut down on these bills in any way we can. It is well worth the effort when you opt for a little furnace tune-up.

Heating systems have three parts; a thermostat or heat sensor determines the room temperature and decides if it needs to be raised. When there’s a drop in this temperature, the heat sensor gives the blower the green light to turn on. The heater generates heat by way of combustion, as the blower displaces air over the heat exchanger. This results in a higher temperature that is distributed throughout your home via the heating ducts. This process continues until the desired or target temperature holds in the room and that’s when the heat sensor or thermostat signals the furnace to power down and take a breather.

But What Need is There Really for a Tune-up?

Since all mechanical home appliances need to be maintained, you ought to be aware of how a tune-up goes a long way in terms of not only ensuring smooth operation all the way, but also saving you heating bills in the process. Follow some of these general guidelines:

  • Have a look – there should be no combustion residue or black soot on the furnace or surrounding areas.
  •  Turn up the heat sensor so your furnace powers up. The flames in the burner should be blue and steady, rather than orange or yellow flames that flicker. Orange/yellow flames or soot build-up are an indicator of generally poor combustion.
  • Turn down the thermostat and let your thermostat cool. For added safety, shut off the circuit breakers to your furnace. Once it has cooled down, remove the sides and get rid of dust that accumulates over time; a vacuum cleaner with a long nozzle is ideal. Your vacuum cleaner cannot reach the blades of the blower fan, in which case, a damp cleaning rag works great. Some blower fans have oil cups at the end of the central shaft. Spurt a few drops of oil while you’re at it.

However, all of this falls under general maintenance. More complex situations could warrant a furnace repair or service somewhere down the road. For detailed inspections, you should only hire the technical expertise of professionals whose central objective is to keep your furnace running in peak condition. You don’t want to suffer from a costly furnace replacement due to carelessness or not maintaining your furnace properly.

A Los Angeles furnace service that also specializes in off-season air conditioner maintenance is just what you need: https://americanairconditioning.com/blog/furnace-repair-services-los-angeles/.

If you happen to be living in the Winnetka area, you can also avail these highly cost-friendly Winnetka furnace services at https://americanairconditioning.com/service-area/winnetka/

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James Smith

As you can tell from our humble beginnings in 1981, we began as a family-owned business and stayed a locally owned air conditioning and heating company in Los Angeles county for nearly 40 years.

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