The holidays are a time to celebrate your family and spend much-needed quality time with the people you love. But you should also keep an eye out for any potential dangers in your home. After all, the holidays would be the worst time for a crisis to happen!
So, even though your furnace probably isn’t at the forefront of your mind this holiday season, it’s on ours! We want to give you our top furnace safety tips to make sure everything runs smoothly and safely for you and your family.
First of all, as chilly as it is outside in Michigan right now, you’ll be working that furnace pretty hard! It’s important that you have an annual maintenance plan to make sure every part is in working order and that your system isn’t overloaded, from, say, a dirty air filter!
Clean Air, Clean Ducts
So, our top furnace safety tip is: change that filter!!
Our next tip, that most people don’t know about, also relates to the ducts: when your heat is running, never close more than 20% of the registers in your home. This can cause heat to build up in your ducts, which messes with your system’s efficiency.
Even worse than closing too many registers is having dirty registers: as heat is distributed throughout your home, you don’t want dust bunnies, pet dander, or insect particles to be distributed along with it, do you?
Even though this isn’t directly related to furnace safety, it certainly relates to the health and safety of you and your family members!
But now, back to the furnace itself:
Make Sure the Area Around Your Furnace is Clean
And especially make sure there is nothing flammable anywhere around the perimeter of the furnace.
Now, this may seem obvious when it comes to storing gas or something next to your furnace, but most people wouldn’t think twice about having some scattered papers or dried leaves around their furnace.
Keep it swept and clean, because that could definitely lead to a fire!
(So, don’t keep your Christmas presents right next to your furnace as a way of hiding them, either…)
Sniff Out Electrical Issues
The older your furnace gets, the more likely it is to have loose connections and burnt wires. If there’s a smoky smell coming from your gas furnace, that is absolutely not normal!
Keep An Ear Out
Another common cause of furnace damage, fume leakage, and fires: high gas pressure.
Basically, how your gas furnace works is, it generates heat from gas fuel. The highly combustible gas goes through the heat exchanger. From there, clean air (no gaseous fumes!) goes into your home.
But one potential problem with this is, if the gas pressure is too high and your sensor isn’t working, you basically have a nightmare scenario. The heat exchanger becomes way too hot, causing the metal in the exchanger to expand. And of course, when metal expands, it cracks.
This can cause all kinds of dangers, like gas leaks and/or fume leaks. However, you may be able to hear a cracking noise, or sniff those noxious fumes.
Now, we know the phrase “noxious fumes” is the exact opposite of what you want to hear about during the holiday season. But that’s why it’s so important to be mindful of furnace issues, especially when your furnace is at its peak usage point.
If you keep these important safety tips in mind, but you still see, sniff, or hear something strange…Give “Santa’s elves” here at H.A. Sun a call at (248) 986-1506 !
We are here to assist you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, with both scheduled and emergency furnace repair service across Bloomfield Hills, Birmingham, West Bloomfield, Auburn Hills, Troy, and the surrounding areas.
