The furnace is a fixture in your home you rarely give much thought to. Typically, you care more about the thermostat settings and whether you’re getting the right amount of airflow throughout the home.
But it’s worth it to give some thought to your furnace before it starts to cool off significantly. That gives you more time to enjoy the winter and less time worrying about if and when your furnace will break down. You can save money and your family is safer too!
How Your Safety May Be At Risk
Let’s start by reassuring you that, for the most part, professionally-installed modern natural gas furnaces shouldn’t run into too many safety issues right off the bat. But this is no guarantee.
It is possible for a furnace to have a small leak in the gas connection. Usually, you can detect this via smell—but not always. The smell of natural gas, that notorious rotten egg odor, is actually added in by the gas company, and you may miss it, or it may be too far from the living area to notice.
A fire hazard is also a possibility. One common issue that goes undetected, often for a long time, is a carbon monoxide leak. Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless gas. A heat exchanger in the furnace is meant to contain carbon monoxide, but cracks in the heat exchanger could cause it to leak out into your living space, which may be deadly.
So what should you do? First, have carbon monoxide (CO) detectors around the home in any area where people sleep. Test them each month, and replace batteries twice a year.
In addition, schedule a furnace tune-up! Not only does this help to improve efficiency, but it also allows technicians to potentially catch safety issues like these, alerting you to the problem and allowing you time to fix it or replace your furnace before it gets very cold.
Contact the experts at MarGo Plumbing Heating Cooling Inc. for a furnace tune-up in Montclair. Get quality work, honesty, and excellent customer service.