View SpecialsLast week, we addressed the number one energy-saving tip on The Ultimate Home Comfort Checklist: A Quality HVAC System. If you don’t have a quality HVAC system, take this crucial step before proceeding with any system tune-ups or HVAC maintenance tips (they won’t be effective on a low-quality unit.)
Once you’ve ensured a solid foundation with a quality HVAC unit, start studying up on the monthly, life-extending, energy-saving tasks that make up HVAC maintenance –step 2 of The Ultimate Home Comfort Checklist.
Simple, Monthly HVAC Maintenance
HVAC maintenance doesn’t always consist of professionally performed tasks. Effective HVAC maintenance also comes in the form of personally cleaning, clearing, and inspecting various parts of your unit. Here are five easy, DIY tasks to include in your own monthly HVAC maintenance.
- Inspect refrigerant line fittings each month
- Replace your air filters every 30 days
- Wash your outdoor coil
- Clear AC condensate drain with a bleach/water mixture
- Remove twigs, grass clippings, and leaves from outdoor units and heat pumps.
- Carbon monoxide emission
- Gas valve, lines and connections for leaks
- Heat exchangers
- Ductwork and flue pipe
- Indoor blower wheel and motor
- Unit wiring and electrical disconnect
- Ignition system and assembly
- Thermostat calibration
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These simple tasks help to keep your system clean, ensuring enhanced airflow, increased energy efficiency, and an overall healthier system.
Why You Need HVAC Maintenance
The right HVAC maintenance increases the life of your furnace and air conditioner. Frequent tune-ups, part changes or simple system cleanings all aid in the constant upkeep of your HVAC, assuring a longer life span and improved home comfort year-round. Don’t you want to be confident that your HVAC system is equipped to run long and strong through the entire season, especially when faced with particularly brutal temperatures?
When You Need HVAC Maintenance
To keep your systems running properly, have a tune-up completed twice a year,
√ Once in the spring to ensure your AC unit is ready to power through the summer heat
√ Once in the fall to make sure your furnace is totally fail-proof before a bone chilling winter.
The key is to get your units checked before the temperatures rise or drop to an uncomfortable degree. Once the season kicks into high gear, HVAC companies are going to be busy fixing all the units that were not maintained and ill prepared – make sure yours isn’t one of them.
Professional HVAC Maintenance
There are plenty of HVAC maintenance tasks that don’t require professional help, (see “Simple, Monthly HVAC Maintenance”) but once in a while, you want to make sure you call in the experts. [contact us]
A trained HVAC technician’s expertise far outweighs the average homeowner’s knowledge of heating and cooling (you might see that your gas pressure is off, but do you know what it should read/how to adjust it?) A professionally performed tune-up guarantees safe and thorough inspection of your HVAC, followed by the correct diagnoses and the mechanical means to fix existing problems.
Here’s what a professional technician [links to: comfort-consultants] typically checks during a tune-up:
These tasks make up the foundational layer of HVAC maintenance. Depending on your unit’s age, size and fuel type, a basic, surface-level inspection might uncover some deeper issues. In that case, it’s always more beneficial (and much safer) to let the professionals handle it.
You don’ want to be stuck mid-season with a faulty, un-maintained unit, and you definitely don’t want to pay higher utilities because of a faulty, un-maintained unit. With the right combination of personal and professional HVAC maintenance, you ensure energy savings and home comfort all year long.
Check back next week for the third item on The Ultimate Home Comfort Checklist!
Ready to discover all six remaining tips right now? Click here to download your very own copy of The Home Comfort Checklist and see how simple it is to cut utility costs while maintaining ultimate comfort in your home.
